FLATLAND: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Abbott, Edwin Abbott - 1980

San Francisco: The Arion Press, 1980. Near fine. This is copy number 17 of 275 signed by Andrew Hoyem, the printer, and Ray Bradbury, who wrote the introduction. Printed on T.H. Saunders all-rag mould-made paper from Inveresk of England, and illustrated with 14 line drawings and 10 hand-colored geometric die-cut illustrations. Bound concertina-style in silk-screened aluminum, which opens to a 33-foot panorama. The book slides into a protective aluminum frame, which latches in the lower right corner. Typical mild scuffing to the aluminum; else near fine.

A striking reinterpretation of Edwin A. Abbott's hallucinatory 1884 novella. This mind-expanding satire describes a two-dimensional world organized by strict caste system of geometrical forms. Although Flatland did not initially achieve popular success, it gained a broad audience after the publication of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which focused attention on the concept of a fourth dimension. The book enjoyed another renaissance with the advent of modern science fiction in the late 1930s and is now widely acknowledged as a pioneering work of mathematical fiction.