Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions

Flatland is an extraordinary Victorian fantasy and satire on Victorian society in which the narrator, A Square describes life in two dimensions before encountering the third dimension and imagining the existence of a fourth - and more. This new edition taps into the fable's imaginative paralleling of today's string theory, as well as its discussion of Victorian theology, class, and gender issues. This delightful novel combines astute social, philosophical, spiritual and mathematical observations with imaginative wit and humour, and like Lewis Carroll's fictions can be read at many different levels. Rosemary Jann's introduction distils recent research on the Victorian intellectual contexts that produced Flatland and explains its relationship to the theological issues central to Abbott's career. It provides the most extensive discussion to date of the class and gender issues raised by the text and of the debates over the limits of scientific and mathematical knowledge in which it participated. Includes the original line illustrations.