Bauman Rare Books Early 2020 Online Catalogue

S C I E N C E & M E D I C I N E B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S • E A R L Y 2 0 2 0 O N L I N E 173 ©2020 Bauman Rare Books www.baumanrarebooks.com 1-800-97-BAUMAN (1-800-972-2862) “To Alleviate Many Future Trips To Caputh And To My Sailboat And To Me”: Autograph Letter Signed “A.E.” By Einstein To His Mistress In 1932 EINSTEIN, Albert. Autograph letter signed “A.E.” Berlin, Germany, May 24, 1932. Two leaves (3-1/4 by 6-1/2 inches; 2-1/2 by 1-3/4 inches) of ivory paper; each penned on recto; framed, measures 16 by 14-1/2 inches. $5200. View on Website Autograph letter signed “A.E.” by Albert Einstein to his mistress Ethel E. Michanowski. The letter, in German, dated “24. V 32,” reads, in translation: “Dear Micha! Many regards upon my return! This to alleviate many future trips to Caputh and to my sailboat and to me. Yours, A.E.” On a smaller accompanying leaf he has penned a verse in Italian: “Il rispettuoso ‘Lei’ e scelto per ochi stranieri,” or “The respectful ‘She’ is chosen for foreign eyes.” Albert Einstein was married twice, but carried on a series of affairs with other women during both marriages, including with his second wife during his first marriage. This brief note to one of his mistresses illuminates this often overlooked aspect of the great scientist’s life. Einstein built a summer house in 1929 in Caputh, a small village in Brandenburg, Germany, 20 miles southwest of Berlin. He liked to sail on the nearby lakes, including the Templiner See and the Schwielowsee. In the summer of 1929, in honor of his 50th birthday, banker friends gave Einstein a 23-foot sailing boat named Tümmler (German for Porpoise). According to a letter written a few months later by his wife Elsa to his sister Maja, “Our ship is magnificent; Albert has his own landing stage at the garden, he enjoys this sailing happiness very intensively.” In an interview still later in 1929, Einstein observed that “the only thing that gives me pleasure, apart from my work, my violin and my sailboat, is the appreciation of my fellow workers.” During his summers at Caputh, Einstein carried on affairs with both Ethel Michanowski of Berlin and Margarete Lebach of Austria. His wife Elsa Einstein, who had been his mistress during his first marriage, tolerated his behavior. When Lebach arrived at Caputh, Elsa Einstein would leave for a shopping trip in Berlin. As a theoretical physicist, Einstein published ground-breaking papers as early as 1905 and developed the theory of relativity including the mass-energy equivalence formula, E=mc^2. In 1922, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the photoelectric effect. In January 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, Einstein was visiting the United States and remained here, becoming a citizen in 1940. A year earlier, he signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany could develop a nuclear bomb, and urging the U.S. to become involved in uranium research, thus beginning the “Manhattan project.” Though he focused on the need to defeat Hitler during the war, afterwards he became known for efforts to further world peace. At the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., from 1933 until his death in 1955, he worked unsuccessfully to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics. Considered the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects of history, Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers and over 150 non-scientific works. The recipient, Ethel E. Michanowski/Michanowsky (b. 1896), was born in Nowosibkow, Ukraine. She was an artist, a Berlin socialite, and a friend of Einstein’s second wife Elsa Einstein and of his stepdaughter Ilse Einstein. Michanowski was involved romantically with Einstein in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when she lived in Berlin. When he lectured at Christ Church, Oxford, in May 1931, Michanowski followed him there from Berlin, much to Einstein’s embarrassment. Michanowski emigrated from Portugal to the United States in October 1940 aboard the SS Exochorda and was detained at Ellis Island for several weeks as a “Stateless Hebrew.” In October 1946, she again entered the United States from Canada at Niagara, and at that time, her son, journalist and archaeologist George Michanowsky (1920-1993), lived in New York City. Text in German and Italian. Faint fold line. Fine condition.