The Blind Mother and The Last Confession (1893) is a collection of two
novellas by British master of fiction Hall Caine.
In the Lake District of northwest England, a young blind woman named
Mercy lives with her son and elderly father on land passed down through
generations. After failing both as a farmer and as a prospector--they
live in country known for its rich veins of copper--her father gives up
their rights to the land to Hugh Ritson, a local statesman's son and
mining engineer. Soon enough, Ritson strikes copper, makes a profit on
the land, and becomes the father of Mercy's child--before marrying the
beautiful Greta. The Blind Mother is a tale of tragedy and the bond
between women whose lives depend on men who fail them, time and again.
In The Last Confession, a physician from London seeks mercy from a
Spanish priest while laying on his deathbed. At times calmly, at others
filled with wild desperation, the man recounts how he was encouraged to
travel to North Africa to cure, or at least alleviate, his neurasthenia.
While in Morocco, he meets a man he calls the American, who navigates
this foreign world with ease and soon sweeps the narrator into a world
of crime. When the physician gets a letter from England informing him of
his young son's terrible illness, he decides to break from his
companion, only to be followed every step of the way by a ruthless
assassin. Caine's novella, the second in this collection, is a story of
desperation, love, and guilt that searches the soul at its limit.
These deceptively simple novellas combine straightforward narratives
with intricate natural detail and a deep understanding of human
psychology. Hall Caine's The Blind Mother and The Last Confession is a
work about ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances, and
remains, over a century after it was published, an essential piece of
English literature. Although he was one of the most famous and acclaimed
authors of his time, Caine's work remains relatively unknown today. With
this edition, it is hoped that Hall Caine once again receives not only
the attention he deserves, but the respect and admiration his work
demands.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Hall Caine's The Blind Mother and The Last Confession
is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
