Albert Einstein: A Biographical Portrait.

REISER, Anton. [Albert Einstein].

Item Number: 26078

New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1930.

First edition of this Einstein biography written by Rudolf Kayser, a German literary historian and husband to Albert Einstein’s stepdaughter Ilse under the pseudonym Anton Reiser. Octavo, original cloth, frontispiece of Einstein. Presentation copy, inscribed by Albert Einstein on the front free endpaper and dated in 1931 with a four line unique poem in German entirely in his hand, which translates, “This life is bizarre and unsound It looks clearer written down the urgencies that in the dark are touched don’t frighten others very much.” The recipient was the wife of Leonor Michaelis, who was a German chemist, and physician, known primarily for his work with Maud Menten on enzyme kinetics and Michaelis–Menten kinetics in 1913. Fine in the rare original dust jacket with some chips and wear. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Rare and desirable.

Albert Einstein developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"). He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "services to theoretical physics", in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory (David Bodanis).