Flatland

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By Orpheus Editions

Edwin Abbott Abbott FBA (20 December 1838 – 12 October 1926) was an English schoolmaster and theologian, best known as the author of the novella Flatland (1884). Born on the 20 of December 1838, Edwin Abbott Abbott was a theologian and English schoolmaster. He wrote the novella Flatland (1884), is best known work. Abbott was the eldest son in his family. Abbott was first educated at the City of London School, before attending St John's College in Cambridge. There, he earned honours in the following disciplines : mathematics, classics, and theology. He became a fellow of this college and took orders in 1962. At King Edward's School in Birmigham, Abbott held several masterships before succeeding to G.F. Mortimer as the headmaster of another school : the City of London School, were he was a student in his youth. He was only 26 years old when he took this role, and he notably oversaw the education of a certain H. H. Asquith, who would later become Prime Minister. In 1889, Abbott retired and decided to devote his time to the theological and literary domains. In 1870, he wrote a book about Shakespearian Grammar and published a biography of Francis Bacon in 1885. Abbott wrote important books about theology : The Kernel and the Husk in 1886, a theological discussion, Philomythus, The Angelican Career of Cardinal Newman in 1891 and 1892 respectively, St Thomas of Canterbury, his Death and Miracles in 1898, Johannine Vocabulary in 1905, and Johanine Grammar in 1906. He also anonymously published three religious romances : Philochristus in 1878, Onesimus in 1882, and Silanus the Christian in 1908.

Abbott was also the author of educational text books, and one of them (Via Latina, First Latin Book) was distributed all around the world and used in many schools around the globe.

The 1884 novella Flatland : A Romance of Many Dimensions, which you hold in your hands, is Abbott's best-known book. The novella was in the first time published pseudonymously and used the author name "A Square". The goal of the book was to use its fictional 2D world in order to comment with satire on the Victorian culture and its hierarchy. The book is best known now for its description of the nature of dimensions.

Flatland was not a great success at first ; the novella was actually rediscovered after the publication of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which created interest in the public in the concept of a fourth dimension.

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