Flatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsThe beloved science fiction classic In Flatland, the more sides a man has, the more powerful he is. Triangles are laborers and soldiers. Squares and pentagons are middle-class doctors and lawyers. Hexagons are nobility. Women, however, are straight lines, incapable of advancement in a two-dimensional world. Everything in Flatland is clear-cut and orderly, until the day an average citizen—a Square—dreams of a land of three dimensions. If three dimensions are possible, why not four? Or one? Soon, the Square’s provocative imagination and corresponding adventures threaten to turn the whole of Flatland against him. First published in 1884, two decades before Einstein’s theory of relativity defined time as the fourth dimension, Edwin Abbott’s Flatland is both a prescient exploration of the unseen and a delightful skewering of Victorian social strictures. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. |
Contents
Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland | |
Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland | |
Concerning the Women | |
Of Our Methods of Recognizing One Another | |
Of Recognition by Sight | |
Concerning Irregular Figures | |
Of the Ancient Practice of Painting | |
OTHER WORLDS | |
How I Had a Vision of Lineland | |
How I Vainly Tried to Explain the Nature of Flatland | |
Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland | |
How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland | |
How the Sphere Having in Vain Tried Words Resorted to Deeds | |
How I Came to Spaceland and What I Saw There | |
How Though the Sphere Shewed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland I Still Desire More and What Came of | |
Of the Universal Colour Bill | |
Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition | |
Concerning Our Priests | |
Of the Doctrine of Our Priests | |
How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision | |
How I Tried to Teach the Theory of Three Dimensions to my Grandson and with What Success | |
How I Then Tried to Diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by Other Means and of the Result | |
Preface to the Second and Revised Edition | |
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Common terms and phrases
according to Analogy angle appear Art of Sight behold Chief Circle Chromatistes Circular Colour Revolt Configuration Contralto countrymen course creature Cube degrees dimness discern distinguish Dodecagon dream Equilateral Triangle exclaimed existence extremities feel Female Figure Fourth Dimension Geometrical Progression Gospel of Three Grandson half hearing Hexagon higher classes household hundred sides imprisonment infer inhabitant of Flatland inside Irregular Isosceles King Land of Three Law of Nature length Lineland listen look Lord Lordship Male marriage mean Monarch motion mouth moving mysteries Northward offspring once Pentagon perfect perfect Circle Perimeter Plane Polygon Priests recognize Regular replied SECTION Sedition sense of sight shew sides equal Sight Recognition Soldier Space speak Sphere Square Straight Line Stranger suppose tablets Third Dimension thou Three Dimensions three inches Tradesman truth Universal Colour Bill unrecognized Dimension Upward utterance voice Wentbridge whole Wife Woman Women words World