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Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition

Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Annotated Edition

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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

p. 100

Sources

The text. Flatland, second edition, London: Seeley, 1884 (Brigham Young University copy); Flatland, first edition, London: Seeley, 1884 (University of Toronto copy); Flatland, first edition (Getty Research Institute copy); Flatland, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1885; Flatland, third edition, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1926; Flatland, Project Gutenberg transcription; Flatland, Standard Ebooks transcription; The Spectator, Publications of the Week, 1 November 1884; Thomas Banchoff, Flatland publication history, Brown University.

Abbott. The Kernel and the Husk (1886), Project Gutenberg text; The Kernel and the Husk, Boston 1887; The Spirit on the Waters (1897); Through Nature to Christ (1877); Philomythus (1891); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry, as reproduced at MacTutor; Uppingham, Candler and Hinton, MacTutor gazetteer; The Spectator, 27 September 1884, the South Witham letter.

Reception. Flatland reviews, Brown University; The Academy, 8 November 1884; The Literary World, 14 November 1884; The Architect, 15 November 1884; The Athenaeum, 15 November 1884; The Athenaeum, 6 December 1884, The Metaphysics of Flatland; Robert Tucker in Nature, 27 November 1884; Nature review, transcription; Knowledge, 28 November 1884; The Spectator, 29 November 1884, review; The Spectator, 29 November 1884, News of the Week; The New York Times, 23 February 1885; Science, 27 February 1885; Science, 3 April 1885; The Literary World, Boston, 21 March 1885; The Critic, 18 April 1885; Lippincott’s Magazine, May 1885; Flatland reviews collected, including Knowledge, 1 March 1887; Nature on Schofield’s Another World, 1888; William Garnett, Euclid, Newton, and Einstein, Nature, 1920; Garnett’s letter, transcription; Garnett’s introduction, 1926; Frank Morley in the Saturday Review of Literature, 1926; Banesh Hoffmann’s introduction, 1952; Cosmos, episode 10, subtitles; Martin Gardner, Mathematical Games, July 1980; Karen Feiden’s introduction, 1982; Isaac Asimov’s foreword, 1983; A. K. Dewdney’s introduction, 1984; Rudy Rucker, The Fourth Dimension; Thomas Banchoff, From Flatland to Hypergraphics; Rosemary Jann, Victorian Studies, 1985, catalogue record; Smith, Berkove and Baker, Victorian Studies, 1996, cited in the IsisCB record for Abbott; Andrea Henderson, PMLA, 2009; Bruce Clarke on Hinton, Weber Studies; Elizabeth Throesch, Before Einstein; Mark Blacklock, A Square, Flatland, Play, and Tradition; Review of Throesch and Blacklock, British Society for Literature and Science; Jayne Hildebrand, Victorian Literature and Culture, 2024; Lindgren and Banchoff, references; Lindgren and Banchoff, critical reaction; Broadview edition, ed. Lila Marz Harper; Linda Dalrymple Henderson, review of the 2013 edition.

Context. C. H. Hinton, Scientific Romances; C. H. Hinton, A New Era of Thought; Jon Crabb, Notes on the Fourth Dimension; P. D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum (1920); Claude Bragdon, A Primer of Higher Space (1913); History of the cylinder phonograph, Library of Congress; Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Flatland; Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Dionys Burger; Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, A. K. Dewdney; Flatterland; Flatland, Harvard Film Study Center, 1965; Flatland, Ehlinger film, 2007; Flatland, Johnson and Travis film, 2007; Flatland 2, Sphereland, Austin Film Festival, 2012.

Philosophy and Scripture. Plato, Republic, tr. Jowett; Plato, Meno, tr. Jowett; Plato, Symposium, tr. Jowett; Plato, Greek texts, Perseus; Aristotle, Metaphysics, Greek and English, Perseus; The Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers, Matheson Trust; Alan of Lille, Regulae theologicae, St John’s College, Cambridge; Pascal, Pensées, Disproportion de l’homme; Emerson, Circles, Standard Ebooks; The King James Bible.

100

About This Reading Edition

Edwin A. Abbott’s mathematical romance of a Square in a two-dimensional world, in the revised text of 1884, with an introduction, full notes and a chapter outline.

Historical Text

Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, first published by Seeley and Co., London, in 1884 under the pseudonym A Square. This supplied annotated edition follows the revised second edition of 1884, established from a modern transcription collated against that printing.

About This Edition

Revised second edition, Seeley and Co., London, 1884; supplied annotated Diotimos edition, 2026

Rights

Edwin A. Abbott’s historical text is in the public domain. Introduction, notes and apparatus © 2026 Diotimos Editions.