SIGNED AND DATED BY EINSTEIN SOON AFTER PUBLICATION, FIRST EDITION OF BARNETT’S UNIVERSE AND DR. EINSTEIN, WITH A FOREWORD BY EINSTEIN

(EINSTEIN, Albert) BARNETT, Lincoln. The Universe and Dr. Einstein. With a Foreword by Albert Einstein. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1948. Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition of Barnett’s highly praised account, hailed by Einstein in his foreword as “a valuable contribution to popular scientific writing,” memorably signed “A. Einstein, 49,” dated the same year this was first reviewed in The New York Times and deemed “the best road map to infinity… we have seen in a long time… Einstein himself likes it; there could not be higher praise than that.”

In Einstein’s foreword he writes: “Anyone who has ever tried to present a rather abstract scientific subject in a popular manner knows the great difficulties of such an attempt… Barnett’s book represents a valuable contribution to popular scientific writing.” In preparation for this work, Barnett visited “Princeton for an interview with Albert Einstein… He went away with a keen enthusiasm to explain the full scope of Einstein’s theories” (Princeton Alumni Weekly, 50:22). In The New York Times review dated February 5, 1949, the same year as Einstein’s date in his inscription, The Universe and Dr. Einstein was heralded as “the best road map to infinity… we have seen in a long time… Einstein himself likes it; there could be not higher praise than that.” The Engineering and Science Monthly similarly declared it “excellent… Barnett has quite appropriately chosen to weave his popular account of the rise and meaning of the quantum and relativity theories about the dramatic personality of Albert Einstein… He has done Einstein and science a genuine service in presenting this excellent and generally understandable account” (Dr. H.P. Robertson). “First Printing” on copyright page. Containing four pages of black-and-white photogravures, including a portrait of Einstein after a photograph by Lotte Jacobi. Einstein’s foreword dated in print, “Princeton, New Jersey, September 10, 1948.” Serialized in Harper’s magazine.

Book fine; light edge-wear, faint edge-toning to near-fine dust jacket.