Appendix A - Critical Reaction to Flatland

Summary

Flatland was reviewed in some of the best “papers,” and the reviews were largely favorable. Two exceptions were brief notices in The Times (“How any man should have apparently spent labour and ingenuity on an elaborate scientific joke that must fall as flat as anything in his own ‘Flatland’ is one of the mysteries that no one may fathom”) and the New York Times (“Some little sense is apparent in an appeal for a better education for women, but beyond that all the rest of Flatland is incomprehensible”). The most prescient reviews were the ones in The Literary World (London) (“This cleverly elaborated fancy is not only likely to create a present sensation in the thinking world, but also to find an abiding place in the classic domains of the great satires of history”) and The Literary World (Boston) (“With so much wit and grace of style is this clever satire on the limits of our knowledge wrought out that we shall not be surprised to see it take a permanent place in literature”).

Contemporary reviews

The Oxford Magazine (5 November 1884, 387)

The Academy (8 November 1884, 302)

The Literary World (London) (14 November 1884, 389–390)

The Architect (15 November 1884, 326–327)

The Athenaeum No. 2977 (15 November 1884, 622)

Nature (27 November 1884, 76–77)

Knowledge 6 (28 November 1884, 449)

The Spectator (29 November 1884, 1583–1584)