Introduction

It came suddenly, splendid and complete, into my mind. I was alone, the laboratory was still, with the tall lights burning brightly and silently ….“One could make an animal—a tissue—transparent! One could make it invisible! All except the pigments. I could be invisible!” I said ….“To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom … ” [1]These words are uttered by the protagonist as he recalls the circumstances of his momentous scientific discovery: H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man (Project Gutenburg, 2004 [1897]), chapter 19. I am an invisible man I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me… they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me....