Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland is a delightfully unique and highly entertaining satire that has charmed readers for more than 100 years. The work of English clergyman, educator, and Shakespearean scholar Edwin A. Abbott describes the journeys of A. Square, a mathematician, and resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, where women-thin, straight lines-are, the lowliest of shapes, and where men may have any number of sides, depending on their social status.

Through strange occurrences that bring him into contact with a host of geometric forms, Square has adventures in Spaceland (three dimensions), Lineland (one dimension), and Pointland (no dimensions) and ultimately entertains thoughts of visiting a land of four dimensions—a revolutionary idea for which he is returned to his two-dimensional world. Charmingly illustrated by the author, Flatland is not only fascinating reading, and it is still a first-rate fictional introduction to the concept of the multiple dimensions of space.