The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

What a wonderful book!  A brat of a man, prone to increasingly violent temper tantrums, is given the power of invisibility.  He was not a nice man to start with, but the invisibility corrupts him into a sadistic lunatic out to kill.  After all, killing is the only thing he can think of that one can do better when invisible than when visible.


The characters are fun.  Griffin moves from a whiny jerk to a homicidal maniac, partly because of his new found power.  Invisibility is shown to have numerous practical drawbacks.  For example, if he has no clothes on, his whole body, especially his feet, gets incredibly cold.

It reminded me a bit of The Stranger because of Griffin's cavalier attitude to causing others suffering and death.  He never stops to think of others except for to further his own means.  His character development involves him going from a replica of the protagonist of The Stranger to somebody who actively seeks out and enjoys murder.  This one's a classic for a reason.