Ellison says in his introduction to the 30th Anniversary Edition that he started to write what would eventually become "Invisible Man" in a barn in Waitsfield, Vermont, in the summer of 1945 while on sick leave from the Merchant Marine. The book took five years to complete with one year off for what Ellison termed an "ill-conceived short novel." "Invisible Man" was published as a whole in 1952. Ellison had published a section of the book in 1947, the famous "Battle Royal" scene, which had been shown to Cyril Connolly, the editor of "Horizon" magazine by Frank Taylor, one of Ellison's early supporters.