
H. G.
Wells, “The Invisible Man”, 1895 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Here I present: Jules Verne (1828-1905), “The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz”, 1910 which was a SciFi fantasy. 
The book consists of nineteen (19), untitled chapters.
The “first sentence of each chapter” is shown BELOW.
Chapter #. First Sentence.
#1. “…and get here soon as possible, my dear Henry: I can’t wait to see you”.
#2. “I left Paris on April 5th, at seven forty-five in the morning, on train 173 out of the Garr de l’Est station.”
#3. “Marc had indeed been waiting for me at the dock with his arms extended.”
#4. “The next day – and what a day: I made no official visit to the Roderich family.”
#5. “Early the next morning, I visited parts of Ragz with Captain Haralan, while Marc kept busy with various formalities he needed to carry out for his wedding.”
#6. “I spent the next two days exploring the city: like a true Magyar, I spent long hours on the bridge that links the two banks of the Danube to Svendor Island.”
#7. “Who could have perpetrated such an inexplicable act – who indeed but the only one who had an interest in committing it ?”
#8. “Even before day had a chance to break, rumors of the incidents that had taken place at the Roderich residence spread uncontrollably throughout the town.”
#9. “The direction pursed by Stepark led him toward the northern part of town, while his men, working in pairs, went through the central neighborhoods.”
#10. “So there was no longer any doubt that Wilhelm Storitz was involved: we were in possession of material evidence and were no longer reduced to mere presumption.”
#11. “The wedding date soon approached: only two more days to go, and the sun would rise over Ragz’s horizon announcing the arrival of May 15th.”
#12. “May 15th had arrived: the date that had been so impatiently awaited seemed as though it would never come !”
#13. “These strange acts, the ones in the Cathedral of Ragz, and the ones in the Roderich home, tended towards the same end and must have had the same origin.”
#14. “This was the state Ragz was now in: once so tranquil, so happy, to the point where it was the envy of all other Magyar cities.”
#15. “Once the Storitz house had been completely destroyed, it seemed as though the state of exponential edginess that had consumed Ragz dissipated slightly.”
#16. “Myra had vanished: when this cry shot through the house, nobody seemed to understand its significance at first.”
#17. “Such was the tragic end of Wilhelm Storitz: yet even though the Roderich family had no longer anything to fear from him, hadn’t the situation gotten worse as a result of his death ?”
#18. “Would this situation, over which we no longer had any control, have a happy ending ?”
#19. “And this is how the story ends as we await a happy ending.”
#Ending. “The future might well in the end, but for the sake of Heaven, I pray that the secret of invisibility may never resurface again, and that it remain forever buried deep down in Otto and Wilhelm Storitz’s grave.”
Here I presented: Jules Verne (1828-1905), “The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz”, 1910 which was a SciFi fantasy.
SUMMARY.
The character in the novel are listed as follows:
CHARACTERS.
Marc Vidal, 28, painter, the protagonist.
Henri Vidal, 33, railway engineer, brother of Marc Vidal.
Myra Roderich, 20, fiancee of Marc Vidal,
Wilhelm Storitz, 35, son of Otto Storitz, antagonist.
Otto Storitz, deceased, alchemist, creator of invisibility formula.
Heinrich Stepark, Ragz police chief.
Hermann, servant of Wilhelm Storitz.
PLOT.
Marc Vidal, painter in Paris (the protagonist) visits Ragz, Hungary with his brother Henri Vidal. Marc Vidal is engaged to Myra Roderich.
Before leaving Paris for Ragz, Hungary, Marc Vidal learns of Wilhelm Storitz. Wilhelm Storitz proposed to Myra Roderich but he was refused.
The jilted would-be suitor Wilhelm Storitz terrorizes the Hungarian town of Ragz through his “invisibility”.
Jules Verne in his Wilhelm Storitz, 1910 has a variant of the H. G. Wells, “Invisible Man”, 1895 character Griffin.
Verne’s Storitz and Wells’s Griffin inspired the “invisibility” of SciFi; but, not merely ghost stories.
