Griffin, the Promethean hero of The Invisible Man (1897), is one of Wells's most striking and tragic conceptions--a scientist whose apparently omnipotent power of passing unseen among his fellow humans rebounds on him as a terrible curse. From its opening in a small village inn, the narrative moves inexorably towards a climax of terror as the whole of England unites to hunt down and destroy the invisible alien. The Introduction examines not only the many imitations, but also Wells's own skillful blending of contemporary scientific ideas and chilling Gothic effects.
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From the Publisher:
This work is part of "The Annotated H.G. Wells" series from McFarland.
From the Inside Flap:
Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching--yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.
After a brief prologue, the story begins with a terrifying experience of the hero's high school days, moves quickly to the campus of a Southern Negro college and then to New York's Harlem, where most of the action takes place. The many people that the hero meets in the course of his wanderings are remarkably various, complex and significant. With them he becomes involved in an amazing series of adventures, in which he is sometimes befriended but more often deceived and betrayed--as much by himself and his own illusions as by the duplicity of the blindness of others.
Invisible Man is not only a great triumph of storytelling and characterization; it is a profound and uncompromising interpretation of the Negro's anomalous position in American society.
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