oxford world’s classics

Edwin Abbott Abbott

Since Flatland was first published anonymously in late 1884, it has earned a unique position in the genre of science fiction and fantasy. Although not even acknowledged in the 1937 Dictionary of National Biography entry for its author, Edwin Abbott Abbott  (1838–1926), it has become the best-known work of this late Victorian educator and theologian. Flatland continues to charm modern readers by opening our imaginations to the possibility of a fourth and higher dimensions, but in its own day, it also participated in wider controversies about science, religion, and the social order. Its gentle satire of the blind spots of Abbott’s Victorian contemporaries has continuing relevance to our own intellectual short-sightedness, as it encourages readers to recognize and to question our assumptions about what is logical, natural, and real.