Edwin A. Abbott

Edwin A. Abbott's books use geometry, narrative perspective and practical argument to examine how habits of thought limit what people can perceive. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions builds a society from lines, shapes and ranks, then lets encounters with unfamiliar dimensions expose the confidence behind accepted rules. Its humor depends on the gap between a narrator's certainty and the larger possibilities that certainty excludes. Onesimus turns to a different narrative setting while retaining an interest in belief, witness and interpretation. How to Write Clearly treats expression as disciplined reasoning, emphasizing arrangement, precision and the reader's path through an argument. Across these works, Abbott repeatedly tests the relation between form and understanding: a diagram, a social convention or a sentence can clarify experience, but it can also confine it.