The Country of the Blind

"The Country of the Blind" is a short story written by H. G. Wells. It was first published in the April 1904 issue of the Strand Magazine and included in a 1911 collection of Wells's short stories, The Country of the Blind and Other Stories. It is one of Wells's best known short stories and features prominently in literature dealing with blindness. While attempting to summit the unconquered crest of Parascotopetl, a fictitious mountain in Ecuador, a mountaineer named Nunez slips and falls down the far side of the mountain. At the end of his descent, down a snow-slope in the mountain's shadow, he finds a valley, cut off from the rest of the world on all sides by steep precipices. Unbeknown to Nunez, he has discovered the fabled Country of the Blind.

Born in 1866 in Bromley, England, to a poor family, Herbert George Wells began as an apprentice at the age of 14, but educated himself on his own, received a scholarship (1884), and specialized in biology at the University of London, from which he graduated in 1888. Having become a teacher, but still without money, he will ask journalism for additional resources. His first book is a work of biology, his second a novel: La Machine à explorer le temps (1895), which was an immediate success. One of the pioneers, with Jules Verne, of the novel of anticipation, Wells is also a polemist, believing in progress through science. These trends are reflected throughout a work that includes nearly 50 novels, tales, short stories and essays. H. G. Wells died in London on August 13, 1946.