The Country of the Blind
Complete textA mountaineer reaches an isolated Andean valley whose inhabitants have lived without sight for generations. Assuming that his vision must give him authority, he discovers a community whose skills, institutions and explanations of the world leave little place for the advantage he claims.
Continue readingAbout The Country of the Blind
The valley reverses the visitor's usual relation between normality and disability. Its inhabitants possess detailed knowledge that does not depend on his preferred sense, while he struggles to translate his experience into their terms. The encounter tests the idea that possessing an additional capacity automatically makes someone wiser or more powerful.
Reading focus
Compare what the visitor can perceive with what the valley's inhabitants know how to do.
This reading edition contains 9,568 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: H. G. Wells. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, one hundred from the snows of Cotopaxi, in the wildest wastes of Ecuador's Andes, there lies that mysterious mountain valley, cut off from the world of men, the Country of the Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so far open to the world that men might come at last through frightful gorges and over an icy pass into its equable meadows; and thither indeed men came, a family or so of Peruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanish ruler. Then came the stupendous outbreak of Mindobamba, when it was night in Quito for seventeen days, and the water was boiling at Yaguachi and all the fish floating dying even as far as…
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This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 1 section and 9,568 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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