Flatland

Edwin A. Abbott's hallucinatory tale has captivated readers for more than a hundred years-including contemporary scientists such as Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. In this mind-expanding satire, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions describes a two-dimensional world organized by strict caste system of geometrical forms. The narrator, A. Square, introduces us to Flatland before describing his revelatory explorations of Lineland, a one-dimensional world, and Pointland, a world of no dimensions, and the hitherto inconceivable three-dimensional world of Spaceland, through which he is ushered by his Virgil-like guide, Sphere. In Flatland, Square is regarded as a heretic and imprisoned for his belief in the existence of a third, and possibly even a fourth, dimension.

Edwin A. Abbott biography
Preface to the Second and Revised Edition, 1884 ix

PART I: THIS WORLD

Section 1. Of the Nature of Flatland 1

Section 2. Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland 4

Section 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland 7

Section 4. Concerning the Women 11

Section 5. Of our Methods of Recognizing one another 17

Section 6. Of Recognition by Sight 22

Section 7. Concerning Irregular Figures 28

Section 8. Of the Ancient Practice of Painting 32

Section 9. Of the Universal Colour Bill 35

Section 10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition 40

Section 11. Concerning our Priests 45

Section 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests 48

PART II-OTHER WORLDS

Section 13. How I had a Vision of Lineland 53

Section 14. How I vainly tried to explain the nature of Flatland 59

Section 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland 65

Section 16. How the Stranger vainly endeavoured to reveal to me in words the mysteries of Spaceland 69

Section 17. How the Sphere, having in vain tried words,

resorted to deeds 78

Section 18. How I came to Spaceland, and what I saw there 81

Section 19. How, though the Sphere shewed me other mysteries of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it 87

Section 20. How the Sphere encouraged me in a Vision 95

Section 21. How I tried to teach the Theory of Three

Dimensions to my Grandson, and with what success 99

Section 22. How I then tried to diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by other means, and of the result 102