Book Bearings
Flatland
- 110 pages · about 2 hours
- First published 1884
- 585 editions
- Free to read
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1 About this book
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, though written in 1884, is still considered useful in thinking about multiple dimensions. It is also seen as a satirical depiction of Victorian society and its hierarchies. A square, who is a resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, dreams of the one-dimensional Lineland.
He attempts to convince the monarch of Lineland of the possibility of another dimension, but the monarch cannot see outside the line. The square is then visited himself by a Sphere from three-dimensional Spaceland, who must show the square Spaceland before he can conceive it. As more dimensions enter the scene, the story's discussion of fixed thought and the kind of inhuman action which accompanies it intensifies.
- Science fiction
- Historical fiction
- Mathematics
- Classics
- Wit and Humor as Topic
- Spirituality
- Spiritual life
- Physics
2 What to expect
A short Victorian novella narrated by a square who lives in a world of two dimensions and is visited by a sphere from a third. The first half describes Flatland's rigid society, a satire on Victorian class and the position of women; the second is a thought experiment about what a higher dimension would look like from below. It is odd, witty and brief, and more an idea than a story.
Good for readers who want: mathematical imagination, Victorian satire, and a very short, unusual read.
3 Read it free, right here
A free scan from the Internet Archive opens right here on the page, with no sign-up.
Read it on the Internet Archive4 About Edwin Abbott Abbott
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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