The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance 

by H.G. Wells 

The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance by Herbert George Wells was first published in 1897. This edition has been reset in fresh type.

By the time of The Invisible Man’s publication, Wells was a well-known writer of science fiction. And although being invisible is a facet of science fiction, the question of how someone would behave when able to make himself or herself invisible is an old one. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato posed this very question in his book Republic. In the story, King Gyges discovers a golden ring that can make the wearer invisible.

The Ring of Gyges tale ponders whether a moral man, while invisible, would not simply take what he wanted and act as an unjust man, confident in the knowledge that he could not be seen and recognized.

Perhaps, even today, we can pose a similar question about “trolls” on social media. Do anonymous people behave unjustly or unfairly because they are unseen and unrecognizable?

“I had impunity to do what-ever I chose, everything … Whatever I did, whatever the consequences might be, was nothing to me. I had merely to fling aside my garments and vanish. No person could hold me.”