Flatland (Annotated)

In 1884 an English schoolmaster named Edwin A. Abbott wrote a novella called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Initially the little book was ignored, but after Albert Einstein published his Relativity Theory, Abbott’s book was recognized as a prophetic work of genius that successfully anticipated many of the foundational ideas of Einstein’s theory.

Since then, Flatland has become an enduring classic of speculative scientific writing. Today this humorous work is still considered to offer one of the greatest introductory explorations of multi-dimensionality ever written. The story describes the strange encounter of a two-dimensional being from a world called flatland with a magical being with godlike powers from what he claims is a third dimension. The simplicity of the imagery is the key to its lasting success. Without any mathematical background at all, the reader is brought into a visceral experience of what it means to exist within limit dimensions of reality and what it would mean to have that dimensionality expanded by one.

Emergence Education is proud to offer this elegant new edition. The original illustrations have been retained and an introduction and additional footnotes by Jeff Carreira have been added. These additions highlight the significance of the key insights of the book as they relate to the quest of the modern spiritual seeker.