Flatland: Edwin A. Abbott

"Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" is a classic 19th century novel, which is more than useful reading for people studying multi-dimensional spaces in modern mathematics and physics. As a piece of literature, "Flatland" is respected for its satire on the social hierarchy of Victorian society. The story posits a two-dimensional world (Flatland). The narrator, a humble square (named A. Square), guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. A. Square dreams of a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland), and attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension. A masterpiece which blends Lewis Carroll's mathematical fantasy with Thomas Morus' political utopia, thus prefiguring Eugen Ionesco's literature of the absurd.