Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Edwin A. Abbott

Penguin Publishing Group, 1984 - Fiction - 160 pages

With wry humor and penetrating satire, Flatland takes us on a mind-expanding journey into a different world to give us a new vision of our own. A. Square, the slightly befuddled narrator, is born into a place which is limited to two dimensions - irrevocably flat - and peopled by a hierarchy of geometrical forms. In a Gulliver-like tour of his bizarre homeland. A. Square spins a fascinating tale of domestic drama and political turmoil, from sex among consenting triangles to the international subjugation of Flatland's females. He tells of visits to Lineland, the world of one dimension, and Pointland, the world of no dimension. But when A. Square dares to speak openly of a third, even a fourth dimension, his tragic fate climaxes a brilliant parody of Victorian society. An underground favorite since its publication in England in 1884, Flatland is as prophetic a science-fiction classic as the works of H.G. Wells, introducing aspects of relativity and hyperspace years before Einstein's famous theories, and it does so with a wonderful, enduring enchantment. -- from back cover.

About the author

Edwin A. Abbott was born December 20, 1838. He attended City of London School and Cambridge, where he was an honor student in the classics. Following the career path of his father, Abbott was ordained an Anglican minister. Later he rejected a career as a clergyman and at the age of twenty-six, he returned to City of London School as Headmaster, a position he held for twenty-five years. Always curious about views from varying perspectives, he promoted a liberal attitude toward people of differing backgrounds. As president of the Teachers Training Society, for example, he lobbied for access to university education for women. He resigned as Headmaster at age fifty-three in protest of proposed changes to the mission of the school. Abbott wrote more than fifty books on widely different topics. He had published two series of his sermons while at Cambridge, a book on Shakespearean grammar, and accounts of his efforts to admit women to higher education. His most notable work is Flatland, written in 1884. Flatland is still widely read by both mathematicians and science-fiction readers because of its portrayal of the idea of higher dimensions. The narrator, a two-dimensional square called A Square happens into a three-dimensional world where he gains a wider vision into objects in his two-dimensional home. The book was a favorite with C. S. Lewis. Abbott died on October 12, 1926.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions; Classic science fiction; Penguin science fiction; Signet Classics
• Author: Edwin A. Abbott
• Illustrated by: Edwin A. Abbott
• Contributor: A.K. Dewdney
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 1984
• ISBN: 0451522907, 9780451522900
• Length: 160 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Fantasy / General; Fiction / General; Mathematics / General; Science / General