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First edition in English, first impression, marking the first appearance of any of Einstein's works in English and including a new chapter by Einstein specially for this edition. The translation is based on the third edition of 1918. Robert W. Lawson (c.1889-1960), a lecturer in physics at Sheffield who had studied in Vienna, initiated a correspondence with Einstein on 26 November 1919. Writing a few weeks after the announcement that Eddington's expedition to the South Atlantic had successfully proven part of Einstein's theory, Lawson proposed that Einstein "write a short article about your theories of relativity and of gravitation for Nature. Since the publication of Eddington's solar eclipse findings, this question has finally become current over here as well and I know that an article from your pen would be valued very much" (Correspondence, 177). A month later, Einstein informed Lawson that he had written the article but felt that it was too long, so he wrote a shorter one. Although the article was never published, they kept up their correspondence and Lawson quickly set to work on this translation. A letter from the publisher urged Lawson to make it "as intelligible as possible to the ordinary man... there is complete ignorance in the public mind as to what Relativity means. A good many people seem to think that the book deals with the relations between the sexes" (Correspondence, 326). The additional chapter (Appendix III) for this edition was First edition in English, first impression, marking the first appearance of any of Einstein's works in English and including a new chapter by Einstein specially for this edition. The translation is based on the third edition of 1918. Robert W. Lawson (c.1889-1960), a lecturer in physics at Sheffield who had studied in Vienna, initiated a correspondence with Einstein on 26 November 1919. Writing a few weeks after the announcement that Eddington's expedition to the South Atlantic had successfully proven part of Einstein's theory, Lawson proposed that Einstein "write a short article about your theories of relativity and of gravitation for Nature. Since the publication of Eddington's solar eclipse findings, this question has finally become current over here as well and I know that an article from your pen would be valued very much" (Correspondence, 177). A month later, Einstein informed Lawson that he had written the article but felt that it was too long, so he wrote a shorter one. Although the article was never published, they kept up their correspondence and Lawson quickly set to work on this translation. A letter from the publisher urged Lawson to make it "as intelligible as possible to the ordinary man... there is complete ignorance in the public mind as to what Relativity means. A good many people seem to think that the book deals with the relations between the sexes" (Correspondence, 326). The additional chapter (Appendix III) for this edition was written by Einstein in only a few hours, at Lawson's insistence that the book would be more accessible if its author could provide a proof of the general theory. The work was first published in German in 1916. READ MORE Octavo. Original red cloth, spine ruled and lettered in black, front cover panelled and lettered in blind. Portrait frontispiece of the author by Hermann Struck, diagrams, figures and equations in the text, publisher's 8-page catalogue at rear. With 1937 bookplate recording the donation of this copy to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Hamilton Kilgour. Light bumping and rubbing, faint toning to spine, slight browning to endpapers, minor foxing to edges and content margins, contents otherwise fresh: a very good copy. Weil 90A. Buchwald, Sauer, & Kennefick (eds.), The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein Volume 9: The Berlin Years: Correspondence January 1919-April 1920, 2004.

This book, written by Albert Einstein, introduces his groundbreaking theory of relativity, explaining its concepts in a form accessible to the general public.