Word Art: the Geographical Vocabulary of Edwin Abbott's "Flatland"

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post  

 Edwin Abbott’s slender Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimensions is perhaps one of the best books ever written on perception and dimensions, a beautifully insightful book that was quick and sharp, and in spite of all that was also a best-seller.  Written in 1884 when Abbott was 46 (Abbott would live another 46 years and enjoy the book’s popular reception), it introduces the reader to a two dimensional world with a social structure in which the more sides of your object equals power and esteem.  Thus the lowest class would be a triangle (three sides) while the highest (priestly) class would be mega-polygons whose shape would approach a circle.  Abbott’s magistry comes in explaining to the three-dimensional reader what it was like to be in a two-dimensional world.

Comments

[Jeff Donlan]

I love the pasted price adjustment at the bottom of ... is that a cover or a title page?

[John F. Ptak]

Cover prices on the cover--they turn up as points to distinguish firt editions and such now and then. ("Naked Lunch" and "Lolita" are examples via Olympia Press.)