"The baseless fabric of a dream"
By [ABBOTT, Edwin Abbott, pseud.] "A SQUARE", BRADBURY, Raymond [introductory essay], HOYEM, Andrew [illustrator] , 1884
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Flatland A Romance of Many Dimensions.

  • Author: [ABBOTT, Edwin Abbott, pseud.] "A SQUARE", BRADBURY, Raymond [introductory essay], HOYEM, Andrew [illustrator]
  • Publication place: San Francisco,
  • Publisher: Arion Press,
  • Publication date: 1980.
  • Physical description: First edition. Tall quarto (355 by 178mm), unpaginated concertina, numbered "167" in a limited edition of 275 copies, illustrated with numerous highlighted die cut-outs by Andrew Hoyem, aluminium boards, contained within hinged aluminium sleeve.
  • Inventory reference: 22616

Notes

An extraordinary edition of Abbott's nineteenth century mathematical fantasy comprising a 33 foot long two-sided word-for-word reproduction of the original text. Bound in concertina form with die cut-outs by Arion Press founder Andrew Hoyem, the book has a physical presence quite unlike any other. Seldom has content and packaging been so acutely matched. The whole is topped off with a tour-de-force of an introduction by the legendary science fiction author Ray Bradbury, who concedes that "...having me introduce Flatland is like asking a blind man to describe rainbows". This sense of wondrous bewilderment greets all who encounter Flatland, even its narrator, who, in his final words, borrowing from Prospero, worries that:

"...all the substantial realities of Flatland itself, appear no better than the offspring of a diseased imagination, or the baseless fabric of a dream".

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