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Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Annotated Edition

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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions§ 19. Other mysteries of Spaceland · § 19.—How, though the Sphere showed me other mysteries of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it · Part 5

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English Edition · Branch 74 of 100

§ 19. Other mysteries of Spaceland · § 19.—How, though the Sphere showed me other mysteries of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it · Part 5

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

p. 74

How long I should have continued I know not. In vain did the Sphere, in his voice of thunder, reiterate his commands of silence, and threaten me with the direst penalties if I persisted. Nothing could stem the flood of my ecstatic aspirations. Perhaps I was to blame; but indeed I was intoxicated with the recent draughts of Truth to which he himself had introduced me. However, the end was not long in coming. My words were cut short by a crash outside, and a simultaneous crash inside me, which impelled me through Space with a velocity that precluded speech. Down! down! down! I was rapidly descending; and I knew that return to Flatland was my doom. One glimpse, one last and never-to-be-forgotten glimpse I had of that dull level wilderness—which was now to become my Universe again—spread out before my eye. Then a darkness. Then a final, all-consummating thunder-peal; and, when I came to myself, I was once more a common creeping Square, in my Study at home, listening to the Peace-Cry of my approaching Wife.

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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.