To The Inhabitants of space in general And H. C. in particular This Work is Dedicated By a Humble Native of Flatland In the Hope that Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries Of three Dimensions Ha...

If my poor Flatland friend retained the vigour of mind which he enjoyed when he began to compose these Memoirs, I should not now need to represent him in this preface, in which he desires, firstly, to...

I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space. Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Line...

I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space. Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Line...

As with you, so also with us, there are four points of the compass: North, South, East, and West. There being no sun nor other heavenly bodies, it is impossible for us to determine the North in the us...

The greatest length or breadth of a full grown inhabitant of Flatland may be estimated at about eleven of your inches. Twelve inches may be regarded as a maximum. Our women are Straight Lines. Our sol...

If our highly pointed Triangles of the soldier class are formidable, it may be readily inferred that far more formidable are our women. For if a soldier is a wedge, a woman is a needle; being, so to s...

You, who are blessed with shade as well as light, you, who are gifted with two eyes, endowed with a knowledge of perspective, and charmed with the enjoyment of various colours, you, who can actually s...

I am about to appear very inconsistent. In previous sections I have said that all Figures in Flatland present the appearance of a straight line; and it was added or implied, that it is consequently im...

Throughout the previous pages I have been assuming⁠—what perhaps should have been laid down at the beginning as a distinct and fundamental proposition⁠—that every human being in Flatland is a Regular ...

If my readers have followed me with any attention up to this point, they will not be surprised to hear that life is somewhat dull in Flatland. I do not, of course, mean that there are not battles, con...

But meanwhile the intellectual arts were fast decaying. The Art of Sight Recognition, being no longer needed, was no longer practised; and the studies of geometry, statics, kinetics, and other kindred...

The agitation for the Universal Colour Bill continued for three years; and up to the last moment of that period it seemed as though anarchy were destined to triumph. A whole army of Polygons, who turn...

It is high time that I should pass from these brief and discursive notes about things in Flatland to the central event of this book, my initiation into the mysteries of Space. That is my subject; all ...

As to the doctrine of the Circles it may briefly be summed up in a single maxim, “Attend to your Configuration.” Whether political, ecclesiastical, or moral, all their teaching has for its object the ...

It was the last day but one of the 1999th year of our era, and the first day of the Long Vacation. Having amused myself till a late hour with my favourite recreation of geometry, I had retired to rest...

It was the last day but one of the 1999th year of our era, and the first day of the Long Vacation. Having amused myself till a late hour with my favourite recreation of geometry, I had retired to rest...

Thinking that it was time to bring down the Monarch from his raptures to the level of common sense, I determined to endeavour to open up to him some glimpses of the truth, that is to say of the nature...

From dreams I proceed to facts. It was the last day of the 1999th year of our era. The pattering of the rain had long ago announced nightfall; and I was sitting in the company of my wife, musing on th...

As soon as the sound of the peace-cry of my departing wife had died away, I began to approach the Stranger with the intention of taking a nearer view and of bidding him be seated: but his appearance s...

It was in vain. I brought my hardest right angle into violent collision with the Stranger, pressing on him with a force sufficient to have destroyed any ordinary Circle: but I could feel him slowly an...

An unspeakable horror seized me. There was a darkness; then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight that was not like seeing; I saw a Line that was no Line; Space that was not Space: I was myself, and n...

When I saw my poor brother led away to imprisonment, I attempted to leap down into the Council Chamber, desiring to intercede on his behalf, or at least bid him farewell. But I found that I had no mot...

Although I had less than a minute for reflection, I felt, by a kind of instinct, that I must conceal my experiences from my wife. Not that I apprehended, at the moment, any danger from her divulging m...

I awoke rejoicing, and began to reflect on the glorious career before me. I would go forth, methought, at once, and evangelize the whole of Flatland. Even to women and soldiers should the Gospel of Th...

My failure with my grandson did not encourage me to communicate my secret to others of my household; yet neither was I led by it to despair of success. Only I saw that I must not wholly rely on the ca...

The author desires me to add, that the misconception of some of his critics on this matter has induced him to insert in his dialogue with the Sphere, certain remarks which have a bearing on the point ...