The Invisible Man, e-booki angielskie
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The Invisible Man
H.G.WELLS
Level 5
Retold by T. S. Gregory
Series Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter
Pearson Education Limited
Edinburgh Gate, Harlow,
Essex CM20 2JE, England
and Associated Companies throughout the world.
Contents
page
iv
ISBN-13: 978-0-582-41930-8
ISBN-10: 0-582-41930-1
Introduction
Chapter
1
The Strange Man's Arrival
1
First published in the Longman Simplified English Series 1936
This adaptation first published by Addison Wesley Longman Limited
in the Longman Fiction Series 1996
Second impression 1997
This edition first published 1999
Chapter
2
Mr Henfrey Has a Shock
The Thousand and One Bottles
5
Chapter
Chapter
3
9
4
Mr Cuss Talks to the Stranger
13
NEW EDITION
Chapter
5
The Robbery at the Vicarage
16
7 9 10 8 6
Chapter
6
The Furniture That Went Mad
18
21
This edition copyright © Penguin Books Ltd 1999
Cover design by Bender Richardson White
Chapter
7
The Stranger Shows His Face
Chapter
8
9
On the Road
27
Set in ll/14pt Bembo
Printed in China
SWTC/06
Chapter
In the Coach and Horses
31
Chapter
10
The Invisible Man Loses His Temper
33
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the Publishers.
Chapter
11
Mr Marvel Tries to Say No
36
Chapter
12
At Port Stowe
37
Chapter
13
The Man in a Hurry
In the Happy Cricketers
39
Published by Pearson Education Limited in association with
Penguin Books Ltd, both companies being subsidiaries of Pearson Plc
Chapter
14
40
Chapter
15
Dr Kemp's Visitor
43
Chapter
16
How to Become Invisible
49
Chapter
17
18
The Experiment
51
Chapter
The Plan That Failed
53
Chapter
19
The Hunt for the Invisible Man
56
Chapter
20
The Wicksteed Murder
58
For a complete list of titles available in the Penguin Readers series, please write to your local
Pearson Education office or to: Penguin Readers Marketing Department,
Pearson Education, Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE.
Chapter
21
The Attack on Kemp's House
60
Chapter
22
The Hunter Hunted
66
Activities
69
Introduction
Wells began to realise that his science fiction, although highly
successful, was not about the lives of real people, and the subject
matter of his later works of fiction is rooted in a world of which
he had personal experience.
Love and Mr Lewisham
(1900) tells
the story of a struggling teacher.
The History of Mr Polly
(1910)
describes the adventures of a shopkeeper who frees himself from
his work by burning down his own shop and running away to
start a new life. In these and other books he shows a sympathetic
interest in, and understanding for, the lives of ordinary people
that were rarely present in fiction at the time. One of Wells's most
successful works is
Tono-Bungay
(1909), a story of dishonesty and
greed involving the production and sale of a medicine that, for a
time, brings wealth and respect to its inventor. ,
For centuries storytellers have been interested in the idea of
invisible beings, with all the related possibilities and dangers.
Wells's interest in the subject is from a scientific rather than a
magical point of view, and he uses the main character in
The
Invisible Man
to put across his message that scientific progress can
be dangerous in the wrong hands. Apart from the idea of
invisibility, the rest of the book is very realistic. It is set in a real
place known to Wells; the characters are ordinary and believable.
All of this makes the less believable central idea easier to accept.
Much of the book is written with a light, humorous touch, but it
becomes more serious as the story develops.
The story begins on a snowy winter's day in the village of
Iping. A mysterious stranger arrives at the Coach and Horses Inn,
wrapped up from head to foot so that no part of his body is
visible. The lady of the inn, Mrs Hall, is pleased to have a guest at
this time of year, but her pleasure turns to doubt and finally to
fear as she discovers her strange visitor's secret. When he begins
to make trips out of the inn, the people of the village and
surrounding area are affected by the appearance and behaviour of
the Invisible Man and they connect his presence with robberies
Herbert George Wells was born in 1866 in Bromley, England
into a family where there was little money to spare; his father ran
a small shop and played cricket professionally and his mother
worked as a housekeeper. The family's financial situation meant
that Wells had to work from the age of fourteen to support
himself through education. His success at school won him a free
place to study at a college of science in London, after which he
became a science teacher. His poor health made life difficult,
though, and he struggled to keep his full-time job while trying to
write in his spare time.
He married twice. His first wife was Isabel Mary Wells, but the
marriage was not a success. Three years later he left her for Amy
Catherine Robbins, a former pupil. Wells often criticised the
institution of marriage, and he had relationships with several
other women, the most important being the writer Rebecca
West. By 1895 Wells had become a full-time writer and lived
comfortably from his work. He travelled a lot and kept homes in
the south of France and in London, where he died in 1946.
Wells wrote about 40 works of fiction and collections of
stories; many books and shorter works on political, social and
historical matters; three books for children, and one about his
own life. His most important early works established him as the
father of science fiction and it is for these books that he is
remembered. Best known are
The Time Machine
(1895),
The
Invisible Man
(1897),
The War of the Worlds
(1898) and
The First
Men in the Moon
(1901). In all these works he shows a remarkable
imagination. He seemed to have the ability to make intelligent
guesses about future scientific developments; he described travel
underwater and by air, for example, at a time when such journeys
seemed to be pure fiction.
IV
v
and strange events in the area. It is the scientist, Dr Kemp, who
the Invisible Man turns to for help and understanding, and who
learns the secret of the strange man's invisibility. When the
Invisible Man finds that he was wrong to have trusted Kemp, his
actions become wilder and more violent and it is clear that the
story will not end happily.
Chapter 1 The Strange Man's Arrival
The stranger came early one winter's day in February, through a
biting wind and the last snowfall of the year. He walked over the
hill from Bramblehurst Station, and carried a little black bag in
his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot,
and the edge of his soft grey hat hid every part of his face except
the shiny point of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his
shoulders and chest. He almost fell into the Coach and Horses,
more dead than alive, and threw his bag down. 'A fire,' he cried,
'in the name of human kindness! A room and a fire!' He stamped
his feet, shook the snow from his coat and followed Mrs Hall, the
innkeeper's wife, into her parlour. There he arranged to take a
room in the inn and gave her two pounds.
Mrs Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to
prepare him a meal with her own hands. To have a guest at Iping
in the winter time was an unusual piece of good fortune, and she
was determined to show that she deserved it.
She put some meat on the fire to cook, told Millie, the
servant, to get the room ready for the stranger, and carried the
cloth, plates and glasses into the parlour, and began to lay the
table. Although the fire was burning brightly, she was surprised to
see that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, and stood with his
back to her, looking out of the window at the falling snow in the
yard.
His gloved hands were held behind him, and he seemed to be
thinking deeply. She noticed that some melted snow was falling
onto the floor from his shoulders.
'Can I take your hat and coat, sir,' she said, 'and dry them in
the kitchen?'
'No,' he replied, without turning.
VI
1
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