Flatland - Edwin A. Abbott 豆瓣评分[8.60]

'Upward, yet not Northward.' How would a creature limited to two dimensions be able to grasp the possibility of a third? Edwin A. Abbott's droll and delightful 'romance of many dimensions' explores this conundrum in the experiences of his protagonist, A Square, whose linear world is invaded by an emissary Sphere bringing the gospel of the third dimension on the eve of the new millennium. Part geometry lesson, part social satire, this classic work of science fiction brilliantly succeeds in enlarging all readers' imaginations beyond the limits of our 'respective dimensional prejudices'. In a world where class is determined by how many sides you possess, and women are straight lines, the prospects for enlightenment are boundless, and Abbott's hypotheses about a fourth and higher dimensions seem startlingly relevant today. This new edition of Flatland illuminates the social and intellectual context that produced the work as well as the timeless questions that it raises about the limits of our perception and knowledge. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Biography Base:
Edwin Abbott Abbott, English schoolmaster and theologian, is best known as the author of the mathematical satire Flatland (1884).
He was educated at the City of London School and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took the highest honours in classics, mathematics and theology, and became fellow of his college. In 1862 he took orders. After holding masterships at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and at Clifton College, he succeeded G. F. Mortimer as headmaster of the City of London School in 1865 at the early age of twenty-six. He was Hulsean lecturer in 1876.
He retired in 1889, and devoted himself to literary and theological pursuits. Dr. Abbott's liberal inclinations in theology were prominent both in his educational views and in his books. His Shakespearian Grammar (1870) is a permanent contribution to English philology. In 1885 he published a life of Francis Bacon. His theological writings include three anonymously published religious romances - Philochristus (1878), Onesimus (1882), and Sitanus (1906).
More weighty contributions are the anonymous theological discussion The Kernel and the Husk (1886), Philomythus (1891), his book The Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman (1892), and his article "The Gospels" in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, embodying a critical view which caused considerable stir in the English theological world. He also wrote St Thomas of Canterbury, his Death and Miracles (1898), Johannine Vocabulary (1905), Johannine Grammar (1906). Flatland was published in 1884.
Sources that say he is the brother of Evelyn Abbott (1843 - 1901), who was a well-known tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, and author of a scholarly history of Greece, are in error.

PART I: THIS WORLD
Section
1. Of the Nature of Flatland
2. Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland
3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland
4. Concerning the Women
5. Of our Methods of Recognizing one another
6. Of Recognition by Sight
7. Concerning Irregular Figures
8. Of the Ancient Practice of Painting
9. Of the Universal Colour Bill
10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition
11. Concerning our Priests
12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests
PART II: OTHER WORLDS
13. How I had a Vision of Lineland
14. How I vainly tried to explain the nature of Flatland
15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland
16. How the Stranger vainly endeavoured to reveal to me
in words the mysteries of Spaceland
17. How the Sphere, having in vain tried words,
resorted to deeds
18. How I came to Spaceland, and what I saw there
19. How, though the Sphere shewed me other mysteries
of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it
20. How the Sphere encouraged me in a Vision
21. How I tried to teach the Theory of Three Dimensions
to my Grandson, and with what success
22. How I then tried to diffuse the Theory
of Three Dimensions by other means, and of the result