赫伯特·乔治·威尔斯陆续发表了《莫洛博士岛》（The Island of Dr. Moreau）、《隐身人》（The Invisible Man）、《世界大战》（The War of the Worlds）、《神的食物》等科幻小说，还写了大量的论文和长篇小说。
The War of the Worlds is split into two parts, Book one: The Coming of the Martians, and Book two: The Earth under the Martians. The novel is narrated by a writer of philosophical articles who throughout the narrative struggles to reunite with his wife, while witnessing the Martians rampaging through the southern English counties. Part one also features the tale of his brother, who accompanies two women to the coast in the hope of escaping England as it is invaded.
The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian fears and prejudices. At the time of publication it was classed as a scientific romance, like his earlier novel The Time Machine. Since then, it has influenced much literature and other media, spawning several films, radio dramas, comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It also influenced the real-life work of scientists, notably the rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard who developed practical techniques for interplanetary travel.
The War of the Worlds is split into two parts, Book one: The Coming of the Martians, and Book two: The Earth under the Martians. The novel is narrated by a writer of philosophical articles who throughout the narrative struggles to reunite with his wife, while witnessing the Martians rampaging through the southern English counties. Part one also features the tale of his brother, who accompanies two women to the coast in the hope of escaping England as it is invaded.
The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian fears and prejudices. At the time of publication it was classed as a scientific romance, like his earlier novel The Time Machine. Since then, it has influenced much literature and other media, spawning several films, radio dramas, comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It also influenced the real-life work of scientists, notably the rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard who developed practical techniques for interplanetary travel.
《时间机器》是英国作家黑.格.威尔士最著名的两篇著作之一（另一篇是大家都再熟悉不过的《世界大战》），这两篇作品在当时曾令我沉溺了好久。而其中最使我感兴趣的是时间旅行的奇妙之处：这在当时还引发了一场关于时间旅行的社会问题及伦理的大争论。故事情节同样的引人入胜，充满了惊险刺激和悬疑。
《时间机器》运用了某种近乎恐怖的手法和错综复杂的情节，展示了一个震撼人心的感人故事。时间旅行家是对科学有所藐视的韦尔斯式的英雄（凡尔纳式的英雄比较推崇科学技术），具有极强的能力，却无法改变现实。整个作品给人以某种荒凉的感觉。
数十年来，时间旅行一直处于主流科学的边缘。然而,近几年内,该话题在一些理论物理学家中间已成了个人的研究爱好。这一变化部分是出于娱乐消遣——想象时间旅行可是件趣事。但此项研究也有其严肃的一面。理解因果关系是尝试建立一个统一的物理学理论的关键部分。如果无限制的时间旅行是可能的，那么在原则上，这样一个统一理论的性质可能会受到极为严重的影响。
我们对时间最完善的理解来自Einstein的相对论。在这些理论诞生之前，时间被广泛地认为是绝对的和普遍的，不管人们的物理状态如何，时间对于每个人都一样。在 Einstein狭义相对论中，他提出测量两个事件的时间间隔取决于观察者如何运动。至关重要的是，运动状态不同的两名观察者对于同样的两个事件将会体验到不同的持续时间。
经常用“双生子佯谬”描述的那个效应：假定Sally和Sam是双胞胎，Sally搭乘一艘飞船以高速驶向附近的一颗恒星去旅行，然后折返飞回地球，而Sam只呆在家里。对于Sally而言，旅行大约持续了一年，但当她返回到地球并跨出宇宙飞船时，她发现地球上已经过去了10年，现在她的兄弟比她大九岁。尽管他们在同一天出生，可是Sally和Sam是不再具有相同的年龄。这个例子说明了一类有限的时间旅行。实际上，Sally已经跳跃到了九年后的地球的未来。
History
Wells had considered the notion of time travel before, in an earlier (but less well-known) work titled The Chronic Argonauts. He had thought of using some of this material in a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette, until the publisher asked him if he could instead write a serial novel on the same theme; Wells readily agreed, and was paid £100 on its publication by Heinemann in 1895. The story was first published in serial form in the New Review through 1894 and 1895. The book is based on the Block Theory of the Universe, which is a notion that time is a fourth space dimension.
The story reflects Wells's own socialist political views and the contemporary angst about industrial relations. It is also influenced by Ray Lankester's theories about social degeneration. Other science fiction works of the period, including Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, and the later Metropolis, dealt with similar themes.
Plot summary
The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator:
The Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to the year A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, androgynous, and childlike people. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he concludes that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival.
Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller finds his time machine missing, and eventually works out that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside. Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, pale, apelike people who live in darkness underground, where he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers, and with no real challenges facing either species. They have both lost the intelligence and character of Man at its peak.
Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. But the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they are overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena is injured. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is lost to the fire.
The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches of a world covered in simple vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.
Overwhelmed, he returns to his laboratory, at just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him in final preparations for another journey. The Traveller promises to return in half an hour, but three years later, the narrator despairs of ever learning what became of him.
Deleted text
A section from the 11th chapter of the serial published in New Review (May, 1895) was deleted from the book. It was drafted at the suggestion of Wells's editor, William Ernest Henley, who wanted Wells to "oblige your editor" by lengthening out the text with, among other things, an illustration of "the ultimate degeneracy" of man. "There was a slight struggle," Wells later recalled, "between the writer and W. E. Henley who wanted, he said, to put a little 'writing' into the tale. But the writer was in reaction from that sort of thing, the Henley interpolations were cut out again, and he had his own way with his text." This portion of the story was published elsewhere as The Grey Man. This deleted text was also published by Forrest J. Ackerman in an issue of the American edition of Perry Rhodan.
The deleted text recounts an incident immediately after the Traveller's escape from the Morlocks. He finds himself in the distant future of an unrecognisable Earth, populated with furry, hopping herbivores. He stuns or kills one with a rock, and upon closer examination realizes they are probably the descendants of humans/Eloi/Morlocks. A gigantic, centipede-like arthropod approaches and the Traveller flees into the next day, finding that the creature has apparently eaten the tiny humanoid.
Film, TV, or theatrical adaptations
First adaptation
The first visual adaptation of the book was a live teleplay broadcast from Alexandra Palace on 25 January 1949 by the BBC, which starred Russell Napier as the Time Traveller and Mary Donn as Weena. No recording of this live broadcast was made; the only record of the production is the script and a few black and white still photographs. A reading of the script, however, suggests that this teleplay remained fairly faithful to the book.
Escape Radio broadcasts
The CBS radio anthology Escape adapted The Time Machine twice, in 1948 starring Jeff Corey, and again in 1950 starring John Dehner. In both episodes a script adapted by Irving Ravetch was used. The Time Traveller was named Dudley and was accompanied by his skeptical friend Fowler as they travelled to the year 100,080.
1960 film
George Pál (who also made a famous 1953 "modernised" version of Wells's The War of the Worlds) filmed The Time Machine in 1960. Rod Taylor (The Birds) starred, along with Yvette Mimieux as the young Eloi, Weena, Alan Young as his closest friend David Filby (and, in 1917 and 1966, his son James Filby), Sebastian Cabot as Dr Hillyer, Whit Bissell as Walter Kemp and Doris Lloyd as his housekeeper Mrs Watchett. The Time Traveller is addressed as George. The plate on the Time Machine which he builds, is inscribed 'Manufactured by H. George Wells'. This is clearly visible and easily read whenever the date indicator panel is shown in the film. The location is not stated anymore precisely than in the south of England, but is near a sharp bend of the river Thames, so is presumably still Richmond, Surrey.
This is more of an adventure tale than the book was; The story begins with the Time Traveller returning from his trip, unkempt and in disarray. He relates to his friends of what he has witnessed: wars' horrors first-hand in June, 1940 over London and a nuclear bomb in August, 1966. Travelling to 802,701 A.D., he finds world has settled into a vast garden. He meets the pacifist, illiterate and servile Eloi, who speak broken English, and have little interest in technology or the past. Their brethren from long ago, the Morlocks, however, although technologically competent, have devolved into cannibalistic underground workers. He deduces the division of mankind resulted from mutations induced by nuclear war - periodic air-raid sirens cause Weena and many Eloi to instinctively report to underground shelters run by the Morlocks. The Time Traveller goes down to rescue them, and encourages a leader among them to help them escape. Having escaped, and after throwing dead wood into the holes on the surface to feed a growing underground fire, they retreat to the river as underground explosions cause a cave-in. After getting to his machine, he is trapped behind a closed door with several Morlocks, whom he has to fight in order to escape. Battered, he makes it back to his scheduled dinner the next Friday January 5, 1900.
After relating his story, the Time Traveller leaves for a second journey, but Filby and Mrs Watchett note that he had taken three books from the shelves in his drawing room. Filby comments that George must've had a plan for a new Eloi civilisation. "Which three books would you have taken?" Filby inquires to Mrs. Watchett, adding " ... he has all the time in the world."
The film is noted for its then-novel use of time lapse photographic effects to show the world around the Time Traveller changing at breakneck speed as he travels through time. (Pal's earliest films had been works of stop-motion animation.)
Thirty-three years later, a combination sequel/documentary Time Machine: The Journey Back (1993 film), directed by Clyde Lucas, was produced. Rod Taylor hosted, with Bob Burns (also Ex Producer), Gene Warren Sr. and Wah Chang as guests. Michael J. Fox (who had himself portrayed a time traveller in the Back to the Future trilogy) spoke about time travelling in general. In the second half, written by original screenwriter David Duncan, the movie's original actors Rod Taylor, Alan Young and Whit Bissell reprise their roles. The Time Traveller returns to his laboratory in 1916, finding Filby there, and encourages his friend to join him in the far future — but Filby has doubts. (Time Machine: The Journey Back is featured as an extra on the DVD release of the 1960 film).
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
Main article: The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
This film, produced and directed by Arnold Leibovit, is a biopic of George Pal. It contains a number of filmed elements from Pal's 1960 film version of The Time Machine.
1978 TV movie
A TV version was made in 1978, with time-lapse images of building walls being de-constructed, and geographic shifting from Los Angeles to Plymouth, Mass., and inland California. John Beck starred as Neil Perry, with Whit Bissell (from the original 1960 movie and also one of the stars of the 1966 television series The Time Tunnel) appearing as one of Perry's superiors. Though only going a few thousand years into the future, Perry finds the world of the Eloi and Morlocks, and learns the world he left will be destroyed by another of his own inventions. The character Weena was played by Priscilla Barnes of Three's Company fame.
1994 audio drama
In 1994 an audio drama was published on CD by Alien Voices, starring Leonard Nimoy as the Time Traveller (named John) and John de Lancie as David Filby. John de Lancie's children, Owen de Lancie and Keegan de Lancie, played the parts of the Eloi. The drama is approximately two hours long. Interestingly, this version of the story is more faithful to Wells's novella than either the 1960 movie or the 2002 movie.
2002 film
The 1960 film was remade in 2002, starring Guy Pearce as the Time Traveller, a mechanical engineering professor named Alexander Hartdegen, Mark Addy as his colleague David Filby, Sienna Guillory as Alex's ill-fated fiancée Emma, Phyllida Law as Mrs. Watchit, and Jeremy Irons as the uber-Morlock. Playing a quick cameo as a shopkeeper was Alan Young, who featured in the 1960 film. (H.G. Wells himself can also be said to have a "cameo" appearance, in the form of a photograph on the wall of Alex's home, near the front door.)
The film was directed by Wells's great-grandson Simon Wells, with an even more revised plot that incorporated the ideas of paradoxes and changing the past. The place is changed from Richmond, Surrey, to downtown New York City, where the Time Traveller moves forward in time to find answers to his questions on 'Practical Application of Time Travel;' first in 2030 New York, to witness an orbital lunar catastrophe in 2037, before moving on to 802,701 for the main plot. He later briefly finds himself in 635,427,810 with toxic clouds and a world laid waste (presumably by the Morlocks) with devastation and Morlock artefacts stretching out to the horizon.
It was met with generally mixed reviews and earned $56 million before VHS/DVD sales. The Time Machine used a design that was very reminiscent of the one in the Pal film, but was much larger and employed polished turned brass construction, along with rotating quartz/glasses reminiscent of the light gathering prismatic lenses common to lighthouses (In Wells's original book, the Time Traveller mentioned his 'scientific papers on optics'). Weena makes no appearance; Hartdegen instead becomes involved with a female Eloi named Mara, played by Samantha Mumba. In this film, the Eloi have, as a tradition, preserved a "stone language" that is identical to English. The Morlocks are much more barbaric and agile, and the Time Traveller has a direct impact on the plot.
2009 BBC Radio 3 broadcast
Robert Glenister stars as the Time Traveller, with William Gaunt as H. G. Wells in a new 100-minute radio dramatisation by Philip Osment, directed by Jeremy Mortimer as part of a BBC Radio Science Fiction season. This was the first adaptation of the novel for British radio. It was first broadcast on 22 February 2009 on BBC Radio 3. The other cast was:
* Time traveller - Robert Glenister
* Martha - Donnla Hughes
* Young HG Wells - Gunnar Cauthery
* Filby, friend of the young Wells - Stephen Critchlow
* Bennett, friend of the young Wells - Chris Pavlo
* Mrs Watchett, the traveller's housemaid - Manjeet Mann
* Weena, one of the Eloi and the traveller's partner - Jill Cardo
* Other parts - Robert Lonsdale, Inam Mirza and Dan Starkey
The adaptation retained the nameless status of the time traveller and set it as a true story told to the young Wells by the time traveller, which Wells then re-tells as an older man to the American journalist Martha whilst firewatching on the roof of Broadcasting House during the Blitz. It also retained the deleted ending from the novel as a recorded message sent back to Wells from the future by the traveller using a prototype of his machine, with the traveller escaping the anthropoid creatures to 30 million AD at the end of the universe before disappearing or dying there.
Wishbone episode
The Time Machine was featured in an episode of the PBS children's show Wishbone, entitled "Bark to the Future". Wishbone plays the role of the Time Traveller, where he meets Weena, takes her to an ancient library, and confronts the Morlocks. The parallel story has Wishbone's owner, Joe, relying on a calculator to solve percentage problems rather than his own intellect, recalling the mindset that created the lazy Eloi.
Sequels by other authors
Wells's novella has become one of the cornerstones of science-fiction literature. As a result, it has spawned many offspring. Works expanding on Wells's story include:
* The Return of the Time Machine by Egon Friedell, printed in 1972, from the 1946 German version. The author portrays himself as a character searching for the Time Traveller in different eras.
* The Hertford Manuscript by Richard Cowper, first published in 1976. It features a "manuscript" which reports the Time Traveller's activities after the end of the original story. According to this manuscript, the Time Traveller disappeared because his Time Machine had been damaged by the Morlocks without him knowing it. He only found out when it stopped operating during his next attempted time travel. He found himself on August 27, 1665, in London during the outbreak of the Great Plague of London. The rest of the novel is devoted to his efforts to repair the Time Machine and leave this time period before getting infected with the disease. He also has an encounter with Robert Hooke. He eventually dies of the disease on September 20, 1665. The story gives a list of subsequent owners of the manuscript until 1976. It also gives the name of the Time Traveller as Robert James Pensley, born to James and Martha Pensley in 1850 and disappearing without trace on June 18, 1894.
* Morlock Night by K.W. Jeter, first published in 1979. A steampunk novel in which the Morlocks, having studied the Traveller's machine, duplicate it and invade Victorian London.
* The Space Machine by Christopher Priest, first published in 1976. Because of the movement of planets, stars and galaxies, for a time machine to stay in one spot on Earth as it travels through time, it must also follow the Earth's trajectory through space. In Priest's book, the hero damages the Time Machine, and arrives on Mars, just before the start of the invasion described in The War of the Worlds. H.G. Wells himself appears as a minor character.
* Time Machine II by George Pal and Joe Morhaim, published in 1981. The Time Traveller, named George, and the pregnant Weena try to return to his time, but instead land in the London Blitz, dying during a bombing raid. Their newborn son is rescued by an American ambulance driver, and grows up in the United States under the name Christopher Jones. Sought out by the lookalike son of James Filby, Jones goes to England to collect his inheritance, leading ultimately to George's journals, and the Time Machine's original plans. He builds his own machine with 1970s upgrades, and seeks his parents in the future.
* The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter, first published in 1995. This sequel was officially authorized by the Wells estate to mark the centenary of the original's publication. In its wide-ranging narrative, the Traveller's desire to return and rescue Weena is thwarted by the fact that he has changed history (by telling his tale to his friends, one of whom published the account). With a Morlock (in the new history, the Morlocks are intelligent and cultured), he travels through the multiverse as increasingly complicated timelines unravel around him, eventually meeting mankind's far future descendants, whose ambition is to travel into the multiverse of multiverses.[clarification needed] This sequel includes many nods to the prehistory of Wells's story in the names of characters and chapters.
* The 2003 short story "On the Surface" by Robert J. Sawyer begins with this quote from the Wells original: "I have suspected since that the Morlocks had even partially taken it [the time machine] to pieces while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose." In the Sawyer story, the Morlocks develop a fleet of time machines and use them to conquer the same far future Wells depicted at the end of the original, by which time, because the sun has grown red and dim and thus no longer blinds them, they can reclaim the surface of the world.
* The Man Who Loved Morlocks and The Trouble With Weena (The Truth about Weena) are two different sequels, the former a novel and the latter a short story, by David J. Lake. Each of them concerns the Time Traveller's return to the future. In the former, he discovers that he cannot enter any period in time he has already visited, forcing him to travel in to the further future, where he finds love with a woman whose race evolved from Morlock stock. In the latter, he is accompanied by Wells, and succeeds in rescuing Weena and bringing her back to the 1890s, where her political ideas cause a peaceful revolution.
* In Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time series, the Time Traveller is a very minor character, his role consists of being shocked by the decadence of the inhabitants of the End of Time. H.G. Wells also appears briefly in this series when the characters visit Bromley in 1896.
* The Time Traveller makes a brief appearance in Allan and the Sundered Veil, a back-up story appearing in the first volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I, where he saves Allan Quatermain, John Carter and Randolph Carter from a horde of Morlocks.
* The time-travelling hero known as "The Rook" (who appeared in various comics from Warren Publishing) is the grandson of the original Time Traveller. In one story, he met the Time Traveller, and helps him stop the Morlocks from wiping out the Eloi.
* Philip José Farmer speculated that the Time Traveller was a member of the Wold Newton family. He is said to have been the great-uncle of Doc Savage.
* Burt Libe wrote two sequels: Beyond the Time Machine and Tangles in Time, telling of the Time Traveller finally settling down with Weena in the 33rd century. They have a few children, the youngest of whom is the main character in the second book.
* In 2006, Monsterwax Trading Cards combined The Time Machine with two of Wells's other stories, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The War of the Worlds. The resulting 102 card trilogy, by Ricardo Garijo, was entitled The Art of H. G. Wells. The continuing narrative links all three stories by way of an unnamed writer mentioned in Wells's first story, to the nephew of Ed Prendick (the narrator of Dr. Moreau), and another unnamed writer (narrator) in The War of the Worlds.
* In Ronald Wright's novel A Scientific Romance, a lonely museum curator on the eve of the millennium discovers a letter written by Wells shortly before his death, foretelling the imminent return of the Time Machine. The curator finds the machine, then uses it to travel into a post-apocalyptic future.
The Time Traveller
Although the Time Traveller's real name is never given in the original novel, other sources have named him.
One popular theory, encouraged by movies like Time After Time and certain episodes of the hit show Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, is that the Time Traveller is meant to be none other than H. G. Wells himself. Indeed, in the George Pál movie adaptation of The Time Machine, his name is given as George (also H. G. Wells's middle name). Due to the clarity of the DVD image, 'H.G. Wells' can be seen on the control panel of the device, making it obvious that the film's Time Traveller is H.G. Wells.
In Simon Wells' 2002 remake, the Time Traveller is named Alexander Hartdegen.
In The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter's sequels to The Time Machine, the Time Traveller encounters his younger self via time travel, who he nicknames 'Moses'. His younger self reacts with embarrassment to this, which implies that it may be a first name that he changed. This is a reference to H.G. Wells's story "The Chronic Argonauts", the story which grew into The Time Machine, in which the inventor of the Time Machine is named Dr. Moses Nebogipfel. (The surname of Wells's first inventor graces another character in Baxter's book, as explained above.)
The Hartford Manuscript, another sequel to The Time Machine, gives the Time Traveller's name as Robert James Pensley.
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life by Philip José Farmer gives the Time Traveller's name as Bruce Clarke Wildman.
The Rook comic book series gives the Time Traveller's name as Adam Dane.
In the Doctor Who comic strip story "The Eternal Present", the character of Theophilus Tolliver is implied to be the Time Traveller of Wells's novel.
Also featured in Doctor Who is Wells, himself, appearing in the television serial Timelash. The events of this story are portrayed has having inspired Wells to write The Time Machine.
《时间机器》运用了某种近乎恐怖的手法和错综复杂的情节，展示了一个震撼人心的感人故事。时间旅行家是对科学有所藐视的韦尔斯式的英雄（凡尔纳式的英雄比较推崇科学技术），具有极强的能力，却无法改变现实。整个作品给人以某种荒凉的感觉。
数十年来，时间旅行一直处于主流科学的边缘。然而,近几年内,该话题在一些理论物理学家中间已成了个人的研究爱好。这一变化部分是出于娱乐消遣——想象时间旅行可是件趣事。但此项研究也有其严肃的一面。理解因果关系是尝试建立一个统一的物理学理论的关键部分。如果无限制的时间旅行是可能的，那么在原则上，这样一个统一理论的性质可能会受到极为严重的影响。
我们对时间最完善的理解来自Einstein的相对论。在这些理论诞生之前，时间被广泛地认为是绝对的和普遍的，不管人们的物理状态如何，时间对于每个人都一样。在 Einstein狭义相对论中，他提出测量两个事件的时间间隔取决于观察者如何运动。至关重要的是，运动状态不同的两名观察者对于同样的两个事件将会体验到不同的持续时间。
经常用“双生子佯谬”描述的那个效应：假定Sally和Sam是双胞胎，Sally搭乘一艘飞船以高速驶向附近的一颗恒星去旅行，然后折返飞回地球，而Sam只呆在家里。对于Sally而言，旅行大约持续了一年，但当她返回到地球并跨出宇宙飞船时，她发现地球上已经过去了10年，现在她的兄弟比她大九岁。尽管他们在同一天出生，可是Sally和Sam是不再具有相同的年龄。这个例子说明了一类有限的时间旅行。实际上，Sally已经跳跃到了九年后的地球的未来。
History
Wells had considered the notion of time travel before, in an earlier (but less well-known) work titled The Chronic Argonauts. He had thought of using some of this material in a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette, until the publisher asked him if he could instead write a serial novel on the same theme; Wells readily agreed, and was paid £100 on its publication by Heinemann in 1895. The story was first published in serial form in the New Review through 1894 and 1895. The book is based on the Block Theory of the Universe, which is a notion that time is a fourth space dimension.
The story reflects Wells's own socialist political views and the contemporary angst about industrial relations. It is also influenced by Ray Lankester's theories about social degeneration. Other science fiction works of the period, including Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, and the later Metropolis, dealt with similar themes.
Plot summary
The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator:
The Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to the year A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, androgynous, and childlike people. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he concludes that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival.
Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller finds his time machine missing, and eventually works out that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside. Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, pale, apelike people who live in darkness underground, where he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers, and with no real challenges facing either species. They have both lost the intelligence and character of Man at its peak.
Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. But the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they are overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena is injured. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is lost to the fire.
The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches of a world covered in simple vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.
Overwhelmed, he returns to his laboratory, at just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him in final preparations for another journey. The Traveller promises to return in half an hour, but three years later, the narrator despairs of ever learning what became of him.
Deleted text
A section from the 11th chapter of the serial published in New Review (May, 1895) was deleted from the book. It was drafted at the suggestion of Wells's editor, William Ernest Henley, who wanted Wells to "oblige your editor" by lengthening out the text with, among other things, an illustration of "the ultimate degeneracy" of man. "There was a slight struggle," Wells later recalled, "between the writer and W. E. Henley who wanted, he said, to put a little 'writing' into the tale. But the writer was in reaction from that sort of thing, the Henley interpolations were cut out again, and he had his own way with his text." This portion of the story was published elsewhere as The Grey Man. This deleted text was also published by Forrest J. Ackerman in an issue of the American edition of Perry Rhodan.
The deleted text recounts an incident immediately after the Traveller's escape from the Morlocks. He finds himself in the distant future of an unrecognisable Earth, populated with furry, hopping herbivores. He stuns or kills one with a rock, and upon closer examination realizes they are probably the descendants of humans/Eloi/Morlocks. A gigantic, centipede-like arthropod approaches and the Traveller flees into the next day, finding that the creature has apparently eaten the tiny humanoid.
Film, TV, or theatrical adaptations
First adaptation
The first visual adaptation of the book was a live teleplay broadcast from Alexandra Palace on 25 January 1949 by the BBC, which starred Russell Napier as the Time Traveller and Mary Donn as Weena. No recording of this live broadcast was made; the only record of the production is the script and a few black and white still photographs. A reading of the script, however, suggests that this teleplay remained fairly faithful to the book.
Escape Radio broadcasts
The CBS radio anthology Escape adapted The Time Machine twice, in 1948 starring Jeff Corey, and again in 1950 starring John Dehner. In both episodes a script adapted by Irving Ravetch was used. The Time Traveller was named Dudley and was accompanied by his skeptical friend Fowler as they travelled to the year 100,080.
1960 film
George Pál (who also made a famous 1953 "modernised" version of Wells's The War of the Worlds) filmed The Time Machine in 1960. Rod Taylor (The Birds) starred, along with Yvette Mimieux as the young Eloi, Weena, Alan Young as his closest friend David Filby (and, in 1917 and 1966, his son James Filby), Sebastian Cabot as Dr Hillyer, Whit Bissell as Walter Kemp and Doris Lloyd as his housekeeper Mrs Watchett. The Time Traveller is addressed as George. The plate on the Time Machine which he builds, is inscribed 'Manufactured by H. George Wells'. This is clearly visible and easily read whenever the date indicator panel is shown in the film. The location is not stated anymore precisely than in the south of England, but is near a sharp bend of the river Thames, so is presumably still Richmond, Surrey.
This is more of an adventure tale than the book was; The story begins with the Time Traveller returning from his trip, unkempt and in disarray. He relates to his friends of what he has witnessed: wars' horrors first-hand in June, 1940 over London and a nuclear bomb in August, 1966. Travelling to 802,701 A.D., he finds world has settled into a vast garden. He meets the pacifist, illiterate and servile Eloi, who speak broken English, and have little interest in technology or the past. Their brethren from long ago, the Morlocks, however, although technologically competent, have devolved into cannibalistic underground workers. He deduces the division of mankind resulted from mutations induced by nuclear war - periodic air-raid sirens cause Weena and many Eloi to instinctively report to underground shelters run by the Morlocks. The Time Traveller goes down to rescue them, and encourages a leader among them to help them escape. Having escaped, and after throwing dead wood into the holes on the surface to feed a growing underground fire, they retreat to the river as underground explosions cause a cave-in. After getting to his machine, he is trapped behind a closed door with several Morlocks, whom he has to fight in order to escape. Battered, he makes it back to his scheduled dinner the next Friday January 5, 1900.
After relating his story, the Time Traveller leaves for a second journey, but Filby and Mrs Watchett note that he had taken three books from the shelves in his drawing room. Filby comments that George must've had a plan for a new Eloi civilisation. "Which three books would you have taken?" Filby inquires to Mrs. Watchett, adding " ... he has all the time in the world."
The film is noted for its then-novel use of time lapse photographic effects to show the world around the Time Traveller changing at breakneck speed as he travels through time. (Pal's earliest films had been works of stop-motion animation.)
Thirty-three years later, a combination sequel/documentary Time Machine: The Journey Back (1993 film), directed by Clyde Lucas, was produced. Rod Taylor hosted, with Bob Burns (also Ex Producer), Gene Warren Sr. and Wah Chang as guests. Michael J. Fox (who had himself portrayed a time traveller in the Back to the Future trilogy) spoke about time travelling in general. In the second half, written by original screenwriter David Duncan, the movie's original actors Rod Taylor, Alan Young and Whit Bissell reprise their roles. The Time Traveller returns to his laboratory in 1916, finding Filby there, and encourages his friend to join him in the far future — but Filby has doubts. (Time Machine: The Journey Back is featured as an extra on the DVD release of the 1960 film).
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
Main article: The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
This film, produced and directed by Arnold Leibovit, is a biopic of George Pal. It contains a number of filmed elements from Pal's 1960 film version of The Time Machine.
1978 TV movie
A TV version was made in 1978, with time-lapse images of building walls being de-constructed, and geographic shifting from Los Angeles to Plymouth, Mass., and inland California. John Beck starred as Neil Perry, with Whit Bissell (from the original 1960 movie and also one of the stars of the 1966 television series The Time Tunnel) appearing as one of Perry's superiors. Though only going a few thousand years into the future, Perry finds the world of the Eloi and Morlocks, and learns the world he left will be destroyed by another of his own inventions. The character Weena was played by Priscilla Barnes of Three's Company fame.
1994 audio drama
In 1994 an audio drama was published on CD by Alien Voices, starring Leonard Nimoy as the Time Traveller (named John) and John de Lancie as David Filby. John de Lancie's children, Owen de Lancie and Keegan de Lancie, played the parts of the Eloi. The drama is approximately two hours long. Interestingly, this version of the story is more faithful to Wells's novella than either the 1960 movie or the 2002 movie.
2002 film
The 1960 film was remade in 2002, starring Guy Pearce as the Time Traveller, a mechanical engineering professor named Alexander Hartdegen, Mark Addy as his colleague David Filby, Sienna Guillory as Alex's ill-fated fiancée Emma, Phyllida Law as Mrs. Watchit, and Jeremy Irons as the uber-Morlock. Playing a quick cameo as a shopkeeper was Alan Young, who featured in the 1960 film. (H.G. Wells himself can also be said to have a "cameo" appearance, in the form of a photograph on the wall of Alex's home, near the front door.)
The film was directed by Wells's great-grandson Simon Wells, with an even more revised plot that incorporated the ideas of paradoxes and changing the past. The place is changed from Richmond, Surrey, to downtown New York City, where the Time Traveller moves forward in time to find answers to his questions on 'Practical Application of Time Travel;' first in 2030 New York, to witness an orbital lunar catastrophe in 2037, before moving on to 802,701 for the main plot. He later briefly finds himself in 635,427,810 with toxic clouds and a world laid waste (presumably by the Morlocks) with devastation and Morlock artefacts stretching out to the horizon.
It was met with generally mixed reviews and earned $56 million before VHS/DVD sales. The Time Machine used a design that was very reminiscent of the one in the Pal film, but was much larger and employed polished turned brass construction, along with rotating quartz/glasses reminiscent of the light gathering prismatic lenses common to lighthouses (In Wells's original book, the Time Traveller mentioned his 'scientific papers on optics'). Weena makes no appearance; Hartdegen instead becomes involved with a female Eloi named Mara, played by Samantha Mumba. In this film, the Eloi have, as a tradition, preserved a "stone language" that is identical to English. The Morlocks are much more barbaric and agile, and the Time Traveller has a direct impact on the plot.
2009 BBC Radio 3 broadcast
Robert Glenister stars as the Time Traveller, with William Gaunt as H. G. Wells in a new 100-minute radio dramatisation by Philip Osment, directed by Jeremy Mortimer as part of a BBC Radio Science Fiction season. This was the first adaptation of the novel for British radio. It was first broadcast on 22 February 2009 on BBC Radio 3. The other cast was:
* Time traveller - Robert Glenister
* Martha - Donnla Hughes
* Young HG Wells - Gunnar Cauthery
* Filby, friend of the young Wells - Stephen Critchlow
* Bennett, friend of the young Wells - Chris Pavlo
* Mrs Watchett, the traveller's housemaid - Manjeet Mann
* Weena, one of the Eloi and the traveller's partner - Jill Cardo
* Other parts - Robert Lonsdale, Inam Mirza and Dan Starkey
The adaptation retained the nameless status of the time traveller and set it as a true story told to the young Wells by the time traveller, which Wells then re-tells as an older man to the American journalist Martha whilst firewatching on the roof of Broadcasting House during the Blitz. It also retained the deleted ending from the novel as a recorded message sent back to Wells from the future by the traveller using a prototype of his machine, with the traveller escaping the anthropoid creatures to 30 million AD at the end of the universe before disappearing or dying there.
Wishbone episode
The Time Machine was featured in an episode of the PBS children's show Wishbone, entitled "Bark to the Future". Wishbone plays the role of the Time Traveller, where he meets Weena, takes her to an ancient library, and confronts the Morlocks. The parallel story has Wishbone's owner, Joe, relying on a calculator to solve percentage problems rather than his own intellect, recalling the mindset that created the lazy Eloi.
Sequels by other authors
Wells's novella has become one of the cornerstones of science-fiction literature. As a result, it has spawned many offspring. Works expanding on Wells's story include:
* The Return of the Time Machine by Egon Friedell, printed in 1972, from the 1946 German version. The author portrays himself as a character searching for the Time Traveller in different eras.
* The Hertford Manuscript by Richard Cowper, first published in 1976. It features a "manuscript" which reports the Time Traveller's activities after the end of the original story. According to this manuscript, the Time Traveller disappeared because his Time Machine had been damaged by the Morlocks without him knowing it. He only found out when it stopped operating during his next attempted time travel. He found himself on August 27, 1665, in London during the outbreak of the Great Plague of London. The rest of the novel is devoted to his efforts to repair the Time Machine and leave this time period before getting infected with the disease. He also has an encounter with Robert Hooke. He eventually dies of the disease on September 20, 1665. The story gives a list of subsequent owners of the manuscript until 1976. It also gives the name of the Time Traveller as Robert James Pensley, born to James and Martha Pensley in 1850 and disappearing without trace on June 18, 1894.
* Morlock Night by K.W. Jeter, first published in 1979. A steampunk novel in which the Morlocks, having studied the Traveller's machine, duplicate it and invade Victorian London.
* The Space Machine by Christopher Priest, first published in 1976. Because of the movement of planets, stars and galaxies, for a time machine to stay in one spot on Earth as it travels through time, it must also follow the Earth's trajectory through space. In Priest's book, the hero damages the Time Machine, and arrives on Mars, just before the start of the invasion described in The War of the Worlds. H.G. Wells himself appears as a minor character.
* Time Machine II by George Pal and Joe Morhaim, published in 1981. The Time Traveller, named George, and the pregnant Weena try to return to his time, but instead land in the London Blitz, dying during a bombing raid. Their newborn son is rescued by an American ambulance driver, and grows up in the United States under the name Christopher Jones. Sought out by the lookalike son of James Filby, Jones goes to England to collect his inheritance, leading ultimately to George's journals, and the Time Machine's original plans. He builds his own machine with 1970s upgrades, and seeks his parents in the future.
* The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter, first published in 1995. This sequel was officially authorized by the Wells estate to mark the centenary of the original's publication. In its wide-ranging narrative, the Traveller's desire to return and rescue Weena is thwarted by the fact that he has changed history (by telling his tale to his friends, one of whom published the account). With a Morlock (in the new history, the Morlocks are intelligent and cultured), he travels through the multiverse as increasingly complicated timelines unravel around him, eventually meeting mankind's far future descendants, whose ambition is to travel into the multiverse of multiverses.[clarification needed] This sequel includes many nods to the prehistory of Wells's story in the names of characters and chapters.
* The 2003 short story "On the Surface" by Robert J. Sawyer begins with this quote from the Wells original: "I have suspected since that the Morlocks had even partially taken it [the time machine] to pieces while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose." In the Sawyer story, the Morlocks develop a fleet of time machines and use them to conquer the same far future Wells depicted at the end of the original, by which time, because the sun has grown red and dim and thus no longer blinds them, they can reclaim the surface of the world.
* The Man Who Loved Morlocks and The Trouble With Weena (The Truth about Weena) are two different sequels, the former a novel and the latter a short story, by David J. Lake. Each of them concerns the Time Traveller's return to the future. In the former, he discovers that he cannot enter any period in time he has already visited, forcing him to travel in to the further future, where he finds love with a woman whose race evolved from Morlock stock. In the latter, he is accompanied by Wells, and succeeds in rescuing Weena and bringing her back to the 1890s, where her political ideas cause a peaceful revolution.
* In Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time series, the Time Traveller is a very minor character, his role consists of being shocked by the decadence of the inhabitants of the End of Time. H.G. Wells also appears briefly in this series when the characters visit Bromley in 1896.
* The Time Traveller makes a brief appearance in Allan and the Sundered Veil, a back-up story appearing in the first volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I, where he saves Allan Quatermain, John Carter and Randolph Carter from a horde of Morlocks.
* The time-travelling hero known as "The Rook" (who appeared in various comics from Warren Publishing) is the grandson of the original Time Traveller. In one story, he met the Time Traveller, and helps him stop the Morlocks from wiping out the Eloi.
* Philip José Farmer speculated that the Time Traveller was a member of the Wold Newton family. He is said to have been the great-uncle of Doc Savage.
* Burt Libe wrote two sequels: Beyond the Time Machine and Tangles in Time, telling of the Time Traveller finally settling down with Weena in the 33rd century. They have a few children, the youngest of whom is the main character in the second book.
* In 2006, Monsterwax Trading Cards combined The Time Machine with two of Wells's other stories, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The War of the Worlds. The resulting 102 card trilogy, by Ricardo Garijo, was entitled The Art of H. G. Wells. The continuing narrative links all three stories by way of an unnamed writer mentioned in Wells's first story, to the nephew of Ed Prendick (the narrator of Dr. Moreau), and another unnamed writer (narrator) in The War of the Worlds.
* In Ronald Wright's novel A Scientific Romance, a lonely museum curator on the eve of the millennium discovers a letter written by Wells shortly before his death, foretelling the imminent return of the Time Machine. The curator finds the machine, then uses it to travel into a post-apocalyptic future.
The Time Traveller
Although the Time Traveller's real name is never given in the original novel, other sources have named him.
One popular theory, encouraged by movies like Time After Time and certain episodes of the hit show Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, is that the Time Traveller is meant to be none other than H. G. Wells himself. Indeed, in the George Pál movie adaptation of The Time Machine, his name is given as George (also H. G. Wells's middle name). Due to the clarity of the DVD image, 'H.G. Wells' can be seen on the control panel of the device, making it obvious that the film's Time Traveller is H.G. Wells.
In Simon Wells' 2002 remake, the Time Traveller is named Alexander Hartdegen.
In The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter's sequels to The Time Machine, the Time Traveller encounters his younger self via time travel, who he nicknames 'Moses'. His younger self reacts with embarrassment to this, which implies that it may be a first name that he changed. This is a reference to H.G. Wells's story "The Chronic Argonauts", the story which grew into The Time Machine, in which the inventor of the Time Machine is named Dr. Moses Nebogipfel. (The surname of Wells's first inventor graces another character in Baxter's book, as explained above.)
The Hartford Manuscript, another sequel to The Time Machine, gives the Time Traveller's name as Robert James Pensley.
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life by Philip José Farmer gives the Time Traveller's name as Bruce Clarke Wildman.
The Rook comic book series gives the Time Traveller's name as Adam Dane.
In the Doctor Who comic strip story "The Eternal Present", the character of Theophilus Tolliver is implied to be the Time Traveller of Wells's novel.
Also featured in Doctor Who is Wells, himself, appearing in the television serial Timelash. The events of this story are portrayed has having inspired Wells to write The Time Machine.
本书是英国科幻小说大师威尔斯的名著之一。书中描写一个青年物理学家格里芬发明了一种隐身术，把自己变成了来去无踪的隐身人。天才的发明并没有给这个极端的个人主义者带来任何欢乐，反使他屡糟灾难，以致一步步走向犯罪的深渊，直至变成一个可怕的杀人狂，而不可避免地走向自我毁灭。
独特奇异的幻想艺术，丝丝入扣、引人入胜的故事情节，以及蕴含深刻的社会内涵，都足以证明《隐身人》不愧是一部世界科幻小说的经典之作。
Plot summary
The book starts in the English village of Iping in West Sussex, as curiosity and fear are started up in the inhabitants when a mysterious stranger arrives to stay at the local inn, The Coach and Horses. The stranger wears a long, thick coat, gloves, his face is hidden entirely by bandages, large goggles, and a wide-brimmed hat. The stranger is extremely reclusive and demands to be left alone, spending most of his time in his room working with a set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. He quickly becomes the talk of the village as he unnerves the locals.
Meanwhile, a series of mysterious burglaries occur in the village in which the victims catch no sight of the thief. One morning when the innkeepers pass the stranger's room, they enter in curiosity when they notice the stranger's clothes are scattered all over the floor but the stranger is nowhere to be seen. The furniture seems to spring alive and the bedclothes and a chair leap into mid-air and push them out of the room. Later in the day Mrs. Hall confronts the stranger about this, and the stranger reveals that he is invisible, removing his bandages and goggles to reveal nothing beneath. As Mrs. Hall flees in horror, the police attempt to catch the stranger, but he throws off all his clothes and escapes.
The Invisible Man flees to the downs, where he frightens a tramp, Thomas Marvel, with his invisibility and forces him to become his lab assistant. Together with Marvel, he returns to the village where Marvel steals the Invisible Man's books and apparatus from the inn while the Invisible Man himself steals the doctor's and vicar's clothes. But after the theft, Marvel attempts to betray the Invisible Man to the police, and the Invisible Man chases after him, threatening to kill him.
Marvel flees to the seaside town of Burdock where he takes refuge in an inn. The Invisible Man attempts to break in through the back door but he is overheard and shot by a black-bearded American, and flees the scene badly injured. He enters a nearby house to take refuge and dress his wound. The house turns out to belong to Dr. Kemp, whom the Invisible Man recognises, and he reveals to Kemp his true identity — Griffin, a brilliant medical student with whom Kemp studied at university.
Mr. Griffin explains to his old friend Kemp that after leaving university he was desperately poor. Determined to achieve something of scientific significance, he began to work on an experiment to make people and objects invisible, using money stolen from his own father, who committed suicide after being robbed by his son. Griffin experimented with a formula that altered the refractive index of objects, which resulted in light not bending when passing through the object, thereby making it invisible. He performed the experiment using a cat, but when the cat's owner, Griffin's neighbor, realized the cat was missing, she made a complaint to their landlord, and Griffin wound up performing the invisibility procedure on himself to hide from them. Griffin theorizes part of the reason he can be invisible stems from the fact he is albino, mentioning that food becomes visible in his stomach and remains so until digested, with the bizarre image passing through air in the meantime.
After burning the boarding house down to cover his tracks, he felt a sense of invincibility from being invisible. However, reality soon proved that sense misguided. After struggling to survive out in the open, he stole some clothing from a dingy backstreet shop and took residence at the Coach & Horses inn to reverse the experiment. He then explains to Kemp that he now plans to begin a Reign of Terror (The First Year of the Invisible Man), using his invisibility to terrorize the nation with Kemp as his secret confederate.
Realizing that Griffin is clearly insane, Kemp has no plans to help him and instead alerts the police. When the police arrive, Griffin violently assaults Kemp and a policeman before escaping, and the next day he leaves a note on Kemp's doorstep announcing that Kemp will be the first man killed in the Reign of Terror. Kemp remains cool and writes a note to the Colonel, detailing a plan to use himself as bait to trap the Invisible Man, but as a maidservant attempts to deliver the note she is attacked by Griffin and the note is stolen.
Just as the police accompany the attacked maid back to the house, the Invisible Man breaks in through the back door and makes for Kemp. Keeping his head cool, Kemp bolts from the house and runs down the hill to the town below, where he alerts a navvy that the Invisible Man is approaching. The crowd in the town, witnessing the pursuit, rally around Kemp. When Kemp is pinned down by Griffin, the navvy strikes him with a spade and knocks him to the ground, and he is violently assaulted by the workers. Kemp calls for the mob to stop, but it is too late. The Invisible Man dies of the injuries he has received, and his naked and battered body slowly becomes visible on the ground after he dies. Later it is revealed that Marvel has Griffin's notes, with the invisibility formula written in a mix of Russian and Greek which he cannot read, and with some pages washed out.
Characters
Griffin
"The Invisible Man" cover art.
Dr. Kemp
Dr. Kemp is a scientist living in the town of Port Burdock. He is an old friend of Griffin, who comes to his house to hide after Griffin's transformation into the "invisible man." Kemp has a hard time accepting the fact that his friend, who he had not seen for years, suddenly appears uninvited and invisible, but eventually he overcomes his shock and sits down and talks with Griffin and betrays him.
Narrative-wise, Kemp then allows Griffin to relate the story of how he began his experiments, and all that happened to him between his arrival on his old friend's doorstep and then. Kemp, realizing that Griffin is insane with power, is quick to summon Colonel Adye of the Port Burdock police. Adye fails to apprehend Griffin, who escapes and brands Kemp a traitor, vowing to kill him.
Despite the death threat, Kemp is no coward, and actively assists and advises Adye in quest to find and apprehend the Invisible Man while the police colonel serves as his bodyguard. Eventually Griffin overpowers Adye and comes after Kemp, who, rushing through the streets of Port Burdock, rouses the townspeople into a mob which attacks the Invisible Man and brings his reign of terror to an end.
The film
In the 1933 Universal film adaptation of the book, Kemp is given the first name Arthur and is played by William Harrigan.
Kemp of the film is a much less likable character, and isn't as fortunate as his literary counterpart. Here, Arthur Kemp is a "friend" of Dr. Jack Griffin, who serves as an assistant to Dr. Cranley. Unlike Griffin, Kemp is a thoroughly incompetent scientist, as well as an opportunistic coward. He continually criticises Griffin for his experiments with monocane, and secretly covets Griffin's fiancé (and Dr. Cranley's daughter) Flora.
When Griffin disappears and goes to the remote village of Iping, Kemp attempts to report his colleague's questionable experiments to Dr. Cranley, and tries to woo Flora. Although he manages to convince Cranley that Griffin is up to no good, however, he fails to persuade Flora to forget about her beloved Jack. Shortly after this, Griffin, now made invisible as a result of his monocane experiments and hunted as a criminal by the police in Iping, turns up in Kemp's house seeking his old colleague's assistance.
Although Kemp initially goes along with Griffin's plans, helping him retrieve his notebooks from the Lion's Head Inn (where, unbeknownst to Kemp, Griffin has murdered Inspector Bird), Kemp soon grows too afraid of Griffin to continue assisting him, and alerts Flora, Dr. Cranley, and the police to Griffin's whereabouts. Although Griffin is delighted to be reunited with Flora, his increasing madness frightens her away.
Shortly after, Kemp secretly phones the police, but is overheard by Griffin.
Kemp is marked for death by a furious Griffin, and despite intensive police protection and a daring plan by Inspector Lane to get Kemp safely out into the country disguised as a police officer, Griffin manages to make good on his threats: he ties Kemp up, puts him into his car, and then sends the car over a cliff. Kemp perishes in the crash.
Mr. Hall
Mr. Hall is the husband of Mrs. Hall and helps her run the Coach and Horses Inn. He is the first person in Iping to notice that the mysterious Griffin is invisible: when a dog bites him and tears his glove, Griffin retreats to his room and Hall follows to see if he is all right, only to see Griffin without his glove and handless (or so it appears to Hall).
Mr. Hall appears in the 1933 Universal film adaptation, where he is given the first name Herbert and seriously injured by Griffin. In the film, he is portrayed by Forrester Harvey.
Mrs. Hall
Mrs. Hall is the wife of Mr. Hall and the owner of the Coach and Horses Inn.
A very friendly, down-to-earth woman who enjoys socializing with her guests, Mrs. Hall is continually frustrated by the mysterious Griffin's refusal to talk with her, and his repeated temper tantrums.
Mrs. Hall appears in the 1933 Universal film adaptation, where she was played by Una O'Connor and given the first name Jenny. In the film version, her primary occupation is to scream.
Thomas Marvel
Thomas Marvel is a jolly old tramp unwittingly recruited to assist the Invisible Man as his first visible partner. He carries around the Invisible Man's scientific notebooks for him and, eventually, a large sum of money that Griffin had stolen from a bank. Eventually Thomas grows afraid of his unseen partner and flees to Port Burdock, taking both the notebooks and the money with him, where he seeks police protection.
Although the Invisible Man is furious and vows to kill Thomas for his betrayal, and even makes an attempt on his life before being driven off by a police officer, he becomes preoccupied with hiding from the law and retaliating against Dr. Kemp, and Thomas is spared.
Marvel eventually uses the stolen money to open his own inn, which he calls the Invisible Man, and becomes very wealthy. He also secretly studies Griffin's notes, fancying that one day he will figure out the secret of invisibility. However, he cannot read the foreign language that Griffin has written it in, and some pages have been washed clean after being in a ditch.
In Alan Moore's comics series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which Griffin is a major character, people have suggested that Marvel may have been the man killed by a mob at the end of the original novel, after being substituted by Griffin himself. The only problem with this suggestion is, as Campion Bond introduces the league to Griffin, he commented Griffin made a half-wit albino invisible first.
Marvel does not appear in the 1933 film.
Col. Adye
Col. Adye is the chief of police in the town of Port Burdock. He is called upon by Dr. Kemp when the Invisible Man turned up in Kemp's house talking of taking over the world with his "terrible secret" of invisibility. A very able-bodied and reliable officer, Adye not only saves Kemp from the Invisible Man's first attempt on his life but also spearheads the hunt for the unseen fugitive.
He is eventually shot by the Invisible Man with Kemp's revolver. Upon being shot, Adye is described as falling down and not getting back up. However, he is mentioned in the epilogue as being one of those who had questioned Thomas Marvel about the whereabouts of the Invisible Man's notebooks, and is never made clear whether this occurred prior to his being shot, or if it occurred afterwards and Adye survived.
Dr. Cuss
Dr. Cuss is a doctor living in the town of Iping.
Intrigued by tales of a bandaged stranger staying at the Coach and Horses Inn, Dr. Cuss goes to see him under the pretense of asking for a donation to the nurse's fund. The strange man, Griffin, scares Cuss away by pinching his nose with his invisible hand. Cuss went immediately to see Rev. Bunting, who not surprisingly did not believe the doctor's wild story.
Later, after Griffin had been exposed as The Invisible Man, Cuss and Bunting got ahold of his notebooks, but these were stolen back from them by the invisible Griffin, who took both men's clothes. Although the unlucky Reverend had all his clothing stolen by Griffin, Cuss only lost his trousers.
J. A. Jaffers
J. A. Jaffers is a constable in the town of Iping. He is called upon by Mr. and Mrs. Hall to arrest Griffin after they suspected him of robbing the Reverend Bunting. Like most of the people in Iping, Jaffers was both openminded and adaptable - He overcame his shock at the discovery that Griffin was invisible quickly, determined to arrest him in spite of this.
Jaffers appears in the 1933 Universal film adaptation.
The Rev Mr Bunting
The Rev Mr Bunting is a vicar in the town of Iping. Dr. Cuss went to see him following his first encounter with Griffin. Bunting laughed at Cuss' claims of an invisible hand pinching his nose, but the next night his home was burgled by the Invisible Man himself.
Later, Bunting and Cuss tried to read Griffin's notes but were stopped by the Invisible Man, who stole their clothes. Although Cuss escaped missing only his trousers, Bunting had his entire wardrobe purloined.
Adaptations
Films
* The Invisible Man, a 1933 film directed by James Whale and produced by Universal Pictures. Griffin was played by Claude Rains and given the first name "Jack". The film is considered one of the great Universal horror films of the 1930s, and it spawned a number of sequels, plus many spinoffs using the idea of an "invisible man" that were largely unrelated to Wells's original story and using a relative of Griffin as a secondary character possessing the invisibility formula. These were; The Invisible Man Returns (1940) with Vincent Price as Geoffrey Radcliffe, the film's Invisible Man; The Invisible Woman (1940) with Virginia Bruce as the title character and John Barrymore as the scientist who invents the invisibility process; Invisible Agent (1942) and The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) both starring Jon Hall (as different Invisible Men); and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) with Arthur Franz as Tommy Nelson, a boxer framed for murder who takes the invisibility formula to find the real killer and clear his name. Vincent Price also provided the voice of the Invisible Man at the conclusion of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
* Tomei Ningen, a 1954 Japanese film, released by legendary studio Toho. It is a loose adaptation of the story.
* The New Invisible Man, a 1957 Mexican version starring Arturo de Cordova as the title character; this film is a remake of The Invisible Man Returns (1940).
* Mad Monster Party (1967) included the Invisible Man (voiced by Allen Swift) as part of the monster ensemble.
* The Invisible Woman, a 1983 TV-movie pilot for a comedy series starring Alexa Hamilton.
* Человек-невидимка (Pronunciation: Chelovek-nevidimka; translation: The Invisible Man), a 1984 Soviet movie directed by Aleksandr Zakharov, with Andrei Kharitonov as Griffin. The plot was changed: Griffin was shown as a scientist talented but not understood by his contemporaries, and Kemp (starring Romualdas Ramanauskas) as a vicious person who wanted to become a ruler of the world with Griffin's help. When Griffin rejected Kemp's proposal, the last did all his best to kill him (and finally succeeded). The movie remained unknown to the Western audience because of a violation of Wells's copyright.[citation needed]
* Amazon Women on the Moon, a 1987 comedy anthology film featured a spoof titled Son of the Invisible Man, with Ed Begley, Jr. playing the son of the original Invisible Man who believes he is invisible, but is in fact visible - creating an awkward situation when he confidently disrobes in front of everyone.
* Memoirs of an Invisible Man, a 1992 modernized version of the story, starring Chevy Chase as a man who is accidentally made invisible and is then hunted by a government agent who wishes to use him as a weapon.
* Hollow Man, a 2000 film starring Kevin Bacon, and directed by Paul Verhoeven; this film spawned a 2006 direct-to-video sequel Hollow Man 2 starring Christian Slater as "Michael Griffin" and directed by Claudio Fah.
* A feature film entitled The Invisible Man is scheduled to hit theaters in 2010.
Stage
* Ken Hill adapted the book to play form in 1991, and it debuted at Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1991. It played in the West End in 1993 with Michael N. Harbour as Griffin.
The cast for the production at Stratford East in 1991 was as follows -; Jon Finch [Griffin], Brian Murphy [Thomas Marvel], Toni Palmer [Mrs Hall], Andrew Secombe [Squire Burdock], Geoffrey Freshwater [PC Jaffers/Dr Kemp], Caroline Longo [Miss Statchell], Liza Hayden [Millie], Miles Richardson [Dr Cuss/ Fearenside/Wadgers/Col. Adye], Philip Newman [Wicksteed], Jonathan Whaley [MC/ Teddy Henfrey/Rev. Bunting].
Radio
* The 2001 Radio Tales drama "The Invisible Man" is an adaptation of the novel for National Public Radio.
独特奇异的幻想艺术，丝丝入扣、引人入胜的故事情节，以及蕴含深刻的社会内涵，都足以证明《隐身人》不愧是一部世界科幻小说的经典之作。
Plot summary
The book starts in the English village of Iping in West Sussex, as curiosity and fear are started up in the inhabitants when a mysterious stranger arrives to stay at the local inn, The Coach and Horses. The stranger wears a long, thick coat, gloves, his face is hidden entirely by bandages, large goggles, and a wide-brimmed hat. The stranger is extremely reclusive and demands to be left alone, spending most of his time in his room working with a set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. He quickly becomes the talk of the village as he unnerves the locals.
Meanwhile, a series of mysterious burglaries occur in the village in which the victims catch no sight of the thief. One morning when the innkeepers pass the stranger's room, they enter in curiosity when they notice the stranger's clothes are scattered all over the floor but the stranger is nowhere to be seen. The furniture seems to spring alive and the bedclothes and a chair leap into mid-air and push them out of the room. Later in the day Mrs. Hall confronts the stranger about this, and the stranger reveals that he is invisible, removing his bandages and goggles to reveal nothing beneath. As Mrs. Hall flees in horror, the police attempt to catch the stranger, but he throws off all his clothes and escapes.
The Invisible Man flees to the downs, where he frightens a tramp, Thomas Marvel, with his invisibility and forces him to become his lab assistant. Together with Marvel, he returns to the village where Marvel steals the Invisible Man's books and apparatus from the inn while the Invisible Man himself steals the doctor's and vicar's clothes. But after the theft, Marvel attempts to betray the Invisible Man to the police, and the Invisible Man chases after him, threatening to kill him.
Marvel flees to the seaside town of Burdock where he takes refuge in an inn. The Invisible Man attempts to break in through the back door but he is overheard and shot by a black-bearded American, and flees the scene badly injured. He enters a nearby house to take refuge and dress his wound. The house turns out to belong to Dr. Kemp, whom the Invisible Man recognises, and he reveals to Kemp his true identity — Griffin, a brilliant medical student with whom Kemp studied at university.
Mr. Griffin explains to his old friend Kemp that after leaving university he was desperately poor. Determined to achieve something of scientific significance, he began to work on an experiment to make people and objects invisible, using money stolen from his own father, who committed suicide after being robbed by his son. Griffin experimented with a formula that altered the refractive index of objects, which resulted in light not bending when passing through the object, thereby making it invisible. He performed the experiment using a cat, but when the cat's owner, Griffin's neighbor, realized the cat was missing, she made a complaint to their landlord, and Griffin wound up performing the invisibility procedure on himself to hide from them. Griffin theorizes part of the reason he can be invisible stems from the fact he is albino, mentioning that food becomes visible in his stomach and remains so until digested, with the bizarre image passing through air in the meantime.
After burning the boarding house down to cover his tracks, he felt a sense of invincibility from being invisible. However, reality soon proved that sense misguided. After struggling to survive out in the open, he stole some clothing from a dingy backstreet shop and took residence at the Coach & Horses inn to reverse the experiment. He then explains to Kemp that he now plans to begin a Reign of Terror (The First Year of the Invisible Man), using his invisibility to terrorize the nation with Kemp as his secret confederate.
Realizing that Griffin is clearly insane, Kemp has no plans to help him and instead alerts the police. When the police arrive, Griffin violently assaults Kemp and a policeman before escaping, and the next day he leaves a note on Kemp's doorstep announcing that Kemp will be the first man killed in the Reign of Terror. Kemp remains cool and writes a note to the Colonel, detailing a plan to use himself as bait to trap the Invisible Man, but as a maidservant attempts to deliver the note she is attacked by Griffin and the note is stolen.
Just as the police accompany the attacked maid back to the house, the Invisible Man breaks in through the back door and makes for Kemp. Keeping his head cool, Kemp bolts from the house and runs down the hill to the town below, where he alerts a navvy that the Invisible Man is approaching. The crowd in the town, witnessing the pursuit, rally around Kemp. When Kemp is pinned down by Griffin, the navvy strikes him with a spade and knocks him to the ground, and he is violently assaulted by the workers. Kemp calls for the mob to stop, but it is too late. The Invisible Man dies of the injuries he has received, and his naked and battered body slowly becomes visible on the ground after he dies. Later it is revealed that Marvel has Griffin's notes, with the invisibility formula written in a mix of Russian and Greek which he cannot read, and with some pages washed out.
Characters
Griffin
"The Invisible Man" cover art.
Dr. Kemp
Dr. Kemp is a scientist living in the town of Port Burdock. He is an old friend of Griffin, who comes to his house to hide after Griffin's transformation into the "invisible man." Kemp has a hard time accepting the fact that his friend, who he had not seen for years, suddenly appears uninvited and invisible, but eventually he overcomes his shock and sits down and talks with Griffin and betrays him.
Narrative-wise, Kemp then allows Griffin to relate the story of how he began his experiments, and all that happened to him between his arrival on his old friend's doorstep and then. Kemp, realizing that Griffin is insane with power, is quick to summon Colonel Adye of the Port Burdock police. Adye fails to apprehend Griffin, who escapes and brands Kemp a traitor, vowing to kill him.
Despite the death threat, Kemp is no coward, and actively assists and advises Adye in quest to find and apprehend the Invisible Man while the police colonel serves as his bodyguard. Eventually Griffin overpowers Adye and comes after Kemp, who, rushing through the streets of Port Burdock, rouses the townspeople into a mob which attacks the Invisible Man and brings his reign of terror to an end.
The film
In the 1933 Universal film adaptation of the book, Kemp is given the first name Arthur and is played by William Harrigan.
Kemp of the film is a much less likable character, and isn't as fortunate as his literary counterpart. Here, Arthur Kemp is a "friend" of Dr. Jack Griffin, who serves as an assistant to Dr. Cranley. Unlike Griffin, Kemp is a thoroughly incompetent scientist, as well as an opportunistic coward. He continually criticises Griffin for his experiments with monocane, and secretly covets Griffin's fiancé (and Dr. Cranley's daughter) Flora.
When Griffin disappears and goes to the remote village of Iping, Kemp attempts to report his colleague's questionable experiments to Dr. Cranley, and tries to woo Flora. Although he manages to convince Cranley that Griffin is up to no good, however, he fails to persuade Flora to forget about her beloved Jack. Shortly after this, Griffin, now made invisible as a result of his monocane experiments and hunted as a criminal by the police in Iping, turns up in Kemp's house seeking his old colleague's assistance.
Although Kemp initially goes along with Griffin's plans, helping him retrieve his notebooks from the Lion's Head Inn (where, unbeknownst to Kemp, Griffin has murdered Inspector Bird), Kemp soon grows too afraid of Griffin to continue assisting him, and alerts Flora, Dr. Cranley, and the police to Griffin's whereabouts. Although Griffin is delighted to be reunited with Flora, his increasing madness frightens her away.
Shortly after, Kemp secretly phones the police, but is overheard by Griffin.
Kemp is marked for death by a furious Griffin, and despite intensive police protection and a daring plan by Inspector Lane to get Kemp safely out into the country disguised as a police officer, Griffin manages to make good on his threats: he ties Kemp up, puts him into his car, and then sends the car over a cliff. Kemp perishes in the crash.
Mr. Hall
Mr. Hall is the husband of Mrs. Hall and helps her run the Coach and Horses Inn. He is the first person in Iping to notice that the mysterious Griffin is invisible: when a dog bites him and tears his glove, Griffin retreats to his room and Hall follows to see if he is all right, only to see Griffin without his glove and handless (or so it appears to Hall).
Mr. Hall appears in the 1933 Universal film adaptation, where he is given the first name Herbert and seriously injured by Griffin. In the film, he is portrayed by Forrester Harvey.
Mrs. Hall
Mrs. Hall is the wife of Mr. Hall and the owner of the Coach and Horses Inn.
A very friendly, down-to-earth woman who enjoys socializing with her guests, Mrs. Hall is continually frustrated by the mysterious Griffin's refusal to talk with her, and his repeated temper tantrums.
Mrs. Hall appears in the 1933 Universal film adaptation, where she was played by Una O'Connor and given the first name Jenny. In the film version, her primary occupation is to scream.
Thomas Marvel
Thomas Marvel is a jolly old tramp unwittingly recruited to assist the Invisible Man as his first visible partner. He carries around the Invisible Man's scientific notebooks for him and, eventually, a large sum of money that Griffin had stolen from a bank. Eventually Thomas grows afraid of his unseen partner and flees to Port Burdock, taking both the notebooks and the money with him, where he seeks police protection.
Although the Invisible Man is furious and vows to kill Thomas for his betrayal, and even makes an attempt on his life before being driven off by a police officer, he becomes preoccupied with hiding from the law and retaliating against Dr. Kemp, and Thomas is spared.
Marvel eventually uses the stolen money to open his own inn, which he calls the Invisible Man, and becomes very wealthy. He also secretly studies Griffin's notes, fancying that one day he will figure out the secret of invisibility. However, he cannot read the foreign language that Griffin has written it in, and some pages have been washed clean after being in a ditch.
In Alan Moore's comics series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which Griffin is a major character, people have suggested that Marvel may have been the man killed by a mob at the end of the original novel, after being substituted by Griffin himself. The only problem with this suggestion is, as Campion Bond introduces the league to Griffin, he commented Griffin made a half-wit albino invisible first.
Marvel does not appear in the 1933 film.
Col. Adye
Col. Adye is the chief of police in the town of Port Burdock. He is called upon by Dr. Kemp when the Invisible Man turned up in Kemp's house talking of taking over the world with his "terrible secret" of invisibility. A very able-bodied and reliable officer, Adye not only saves Kemp from the Invisible Man's first attempt on his life but also spearheads the hunt for the unseen fugitive.
He is eventually shot by the Invisible Man with Kemp's revolver. Upon being shot, Adye is described as falling down and not getting back up. However, he is mentioned in the epilogue as being one of those who had questioned Thomas Marvel about the whereabouts of the Invisible Man's notebooks, and is never made clear whether this occurred prior to his being shot, or if it occurred afterwards and Adye survived.
Dr. Cuss
Dr. Cuss is a doctor living in the town of Iping.
Intrigued by tales of a bandaged stranger staying at the Coach and Horses Inn, Dr. Cuss goes to see him under the pretense of asking for a donation to the nurse's fund. The strange man, Griffin, scares Cuss away by pinching his nose with his invisible hand. Cuss went immediately to see Rev. Bunting, who not surprisingly did not believe the doctor's wild story.
Later, after Griffin had been exposed as The Invisible Man, Cuss and Bunting got ahold of his notebooks, but these were stolen back from them by the invisible Griffin, who took both men's clothes. Although the unlucky Reverend had all his clothing stolen by Griffin, Cuss only lost his trousers.
J. A. Jaffers
J. A. Jaffers is a constable in the town of Iping. He is called upon by Mr. and Mrs. Hall to arrest Griffin after they suspected him of robbing the Reverend Bunting. Like most of the people in Iping, Jaffers was both openminded and adaptable - He overcame his shock at the discovery that Griffin was invisible quickly, determined to arrest him in spite of this.
Jaffers appears in the 1933 Universal film adaptation.
The Rev Mr Bunting
The Rev Mr Bunting is a vicar in the town of Iping. Dr. Cuss went to see him following his first encounter with Griffin. Bunting laughed at Cuss' claims of an invisible hand pinching his nose, but the next night his home was burgled by the Invisible Man himself.
Later, Bunting and Cuss tried to read Griffin's notes but were stopped by the Invisible Man, who stole their clothes. Although Cuss escaped missing only his trousers, Bunting had his entire wardrobe purloined.
Adaptations
Films
* The Invisible Man, a 1933 film directed by James Whale and produced by Universal Pictures. Griffin was played by Claude Rains and given the first name "Jack". The film is considered one of the great Universal horror films of the 1930s, and it spawned a number of sequels, plus many spinoffs using the idea of an "invisible man" that were largely unrelated to Wells's original story and using a relative of Griffin as a secondary character possessing the invisibility formula. These were; The Invisible Man Returns (1940) with Vincent Price as Geoffrey Radcliffe, the film's Invisible Man; The Invisible Woman (1940) with Virginia Bruce as the title character and John Barrymore as the scientist who invents the invisibility process; Invisible Agent (1942) and The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) both starring Jon Hall (as different Invisible Men); and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) with Arthur Franz as Tommy Nelson, a boxer framed for murder who takes the invisibility formula to find the real killer and clear his name. Vincent Price also provided the voice of the Invisible Man at the conclusion of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
* Tomei Ningen, a 1954 Japanese film, released by legendary studio Toho. It is a loose adaptation of the story.
* The New Invisible Man, a 1957 Mexican version starring Arturo de Cordova as the title character; this film is a remake of The Invisible Man Returns (1940).
* Mad Monster Party (1967) included the Invisible Man (voiced by Allen Swift) as part of the monster ensemble.
* The Invisible Woman, a 1983 TV-movie pilot for a comedy series starring Alexa Hamilton.
* Человек-невидимка (Pronunciation: Chelovek-nevidimka; translation: The Invisible Man), a 1984 Soviet movie directed by Aleksandr Zakharov, with Andrei Kharitonov as Griffin. The plot was changed: Griffin was shown as a scientist talented but not understood by his contemporaries, and Kemp (starring Romualdas Ramanauskas) as a vicious person who wanted to become a ruler of the world with Griffin's help. When Griffin rejected Kemp's proposal, the last did all his best to kill him (and finally succeeded). The movie remained unknown to the Western audience because of a violation of Wells's copyright.[citation needed]
* Amazon Women on the Moon, a 1987 comedy anthology film featured a spoof titled Son of the Invisible Man, with Ed Begley, Jr. playing the son of the original Invisible Man who believes he is invisible, but is in fact visible - creating an awkward situation when he confidently disrobes in front of everyone.
* Memoirs of an Invisible Man, a 1992 modernized version of the story, starring Chevy Chase as a man who is accidentally made invisible and is then hunted by a government agent who wishes to use him as a weapon.
* Hollow Man, a 2000 film starring Kevin Bacon, and directed by Paul Verhoeven; this film spawned a 2006 direct-to-video sequel Hollow Man 2 starring Christian Slater as "Michael Griffin" and directed by Claudio Fah.
* A feature film entitled The Invisible Man is scheduled to hit theaters in 2010.
Stage
* Ken Hill adapted the book to play form in 1991, and it debuted at Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1991. It played in the West End in 1993 with Michael N. Harbour as Griffin.
The cast for the production at Stratford East in 1991 was as follows -; Jon Finch [Griffin], Brian Murphy [Thomas Marvel], Toni Palmer [Mrs Hall], Andrew Secombe [Squire Burdock], Geoffrey Freshwater [PC Jaffers/Dr Kemp], Caroline Longo [Miss Statchell], Liza Hayden [Millie], Miles Richardson [Dr Cuss/ Fearenside/Wadgers/Col. Adye], Philip Newman [Wicksteed], Jonathan Whaley [MC/ Teddy Henfrey/Rev. Bunting].
Radio
* The 2001 Radio Tales drama "The Invisible Man" is an adaptation of the novel for National Public Radio.