SOURCE: Boulton, Alex. “The Myth of the New Found Land in H. G. Wells's ‘The Country of the Blind.’” The Wellsian, no. 18 (winter 1995): 5-18.

In the following essay, Boulton considers Wells's portrayal of colonial power in “The Country of the Blind” and provides justification for colonial domination in the story.

Literary narratives concerning the wandering of an outsider into a closed valley or new land are prominent in the European literary tradition. To recognise and isolate some of the more common motifs, symbols and secular/religious ideologies which are commonly found in this genre may provide a yardstick against which H. G. Wells's short story in this tradition, “The Country of the Blind” can be considered. A brief examination of the ideas and images contained in the works of authors such as Voltaire, Defoe, Shakespeare, Hobbes, Buchan, Kipling and Haggard is not an attempt to unite under a...