The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories

About the book

A mountaineer reaches a community whose members cannot see, and his assumption that sight must make him superior becomes the title story's central problem. Around it, this substantial collection gathers encounters with strange organisms, altered perception, scientific inventions, impossible powers, and unsettling doors into other possibilities. Wells often begins with recognisable occupations and social habits, then introduces a change that exposes the limits of the characters' understanding. The range includes comedy, horror, social satire, and moments of longing rather than a single kind of speculative adventure. Stories such as The Star and The New Accelerator also change the scale at which human activity can be observed. The collection invites comparison between the confidence an explanation provides and the much harder work of recognising what an unfamiliar situation actually demands.

• Perception
• Scientific possibility
• Human assumptions

Why read it

For a wide selection of Wells's short fiction, where a single changed condition can make an entire way of life look different.

Story collection · English text