'Before Einstein' examines the discourse of hyperspace philosophy and its position within the network of 'new' ideas at the end of the nineteenth century. Hyperspace philosophy grew out of the concept of a fourth spatial dimension, an idea that became increasingly debated amongst mathematicians, physicists and philosophers during the 1870s and 80s. English mathematician and hyperspace philosopher Charles Howard Hinton was the chief populariser of the fourth dimension in Europe and North America. The influence of his writings, many of which were published as a series under the title of...