SOURCE: Review of Flatland, by Edwin Abbott. Spectator 57, no. 2944 (29 November 1884): 1583-84.

In the following review, the critic finds Flatland amusing and occasionally overly technical.

Strange are the tales of travellers, decisive the effect of experience upon previous speculations, and marvellously appropriate the morals brought home from outlandish quarters. Such are the reflections suggested by the attractive little book now before us [Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions]. It tells of a region more unfamiliar than that of giants or pigmies, of anthropophagi, or men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. It throws a light on the question of the nature of space, which will be eagerly welcomed by seekers after a Fourth Dimension; and it proves that the institutions and failings of the race which inhabits the strangest countries bear a curiously perverted resemblance to those of our own.

Mathematicians have long speculated on the nature of...