Edwin A. Abbott

Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838–1926) was an English schoolmaster, theologian and writer. Educated at St John's College, Cambridge, he became headmaster of the City of London School at twenty-six and ran it for twenty-four years, reforming its curriculum to include English literature and science. He wrote a Shakespearian Grammar still in use, a life of Francis Bacon, and many works of liberal theology, including the anonymous Philochristus. His one lasting fame rests on Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, published in 1884 under the name A Square, a satire on Victorian society and a lesson in geometry that mathematicians and physicists have admired ever since.