EINSTEIN, Albert.

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Die Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie. First separate edition, first issue, of the work presenting the finalized version of general relativity. The Grundlage was also published in the Annalen der Physik in 1916, but Weil clarifies that the separate publication is now accepted as the earliest published edition of the paper.Einstein had almost finalized the general theory of relativity in 1913. However, an error led him to contend that his equations could not be covariant - that they could not be applied without a system of spacetime co-ordinates devised by humans, and therefore contextually specific. His first attempt at an overall presentation of the theory, as delivered in 1914, was based on this assumption. By 1915, his subsequent reflections had driven him to reapply covariance, and in November he published several papers outlining covariant field equations of general relativity. The present work adapts the comprehensive perspective of the 1914 paper with the revised mathematics of the 1915 equations to present "the first systematic exposition of general relativity" (Janssen, p. 1). Tilman Sauer notes that "in essence, Einstein's general theory of relativity of 1916 remains today's accepted theory of the gravitational field" (p. 24). This copy includes all the necessary first issue points: the imprint "Druck von Metzger & Wittig in Leipzig. 314" on the title page verso; Ziehen's Die Psychologie as the last title listed in the publisher's advertisement on the re

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