8vo. Original tan printed wrappers, untrimmed (short split along upper spine, minor darkening to at edges); cloth folding case. Provenance: Viktor Achter (bookplate & small monogram stamp inside front cover).

THE FIRST SEPARATE PRINTING OF EINSTEIN'S FUNDAMENTAL GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY, which “transformed astrophysics, and indeed the whole scientific outlook” (PMM). Die Grundlage was first published in Annalen der Physik (4. Folge, Band 49), and was then issued as an offprint in the present form.  It differs from the journal issue by the incorporation of textual revisions, the addition of a table of contents on pp. 3-5 and Einstein's introduction on pp. 5-6. “There were several reprints and facsimiles. The first edition may be identified by the presence of the printer's imprint ‘Druck von Metzger & Wittig in Leipzig’ on the verso of the title and the shorter imprint ‘Metzger & Wittig, Leipzig’ on the back wrapper” (Norman).

Grolier/Horblit 26c; Norman 696; PMM 408; Weil 80.