Cobb made his closest venture to a strict linear narrative in "A Classical Education". Drawn from memories of his school years, the book tells the story of classmate Edward Ball who, at the age of twenty, was convicted of murdering his own mother. After serving fourteen years in the Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Dublin, Ball went to Paris to seek out Cobb. He confessed his guilt to his old friend, but explained his actions with deeper detail than he felt he gave in court. Sympathetically, Cobb recounts the "severe provocation" which drove Ball into "uncontrollable rage".