EINSTEIN, Albert (1879-1955). Out of My Later Years. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1950. Signed and inscribed ("Estella mit herzlichen Grüssen A. Einstein. 50.") on the front blank endpaper.

First edition, inscribed and signed to his former lover, Estella Katzenellenbogen. Best known as a major collector of East Asian art as well as German and French Impressionism and Expressionism, Katzenellenbogen began a liaison with Albert Einstein in 1926. The pair were often seen attending concerts together, and she was known to have visited Einstein at his summer housed in Caputh. Although baptized as a Protestant, her Jewish ancestry compelled her to flee Germany, first to Switzerland in 1936 and then to the United States in 1939. She settled in Los Angeles where she ran a branch of the Nierendorf Gallery for a brief time in mid 1940s, primarily dealing in works by Paul Klee. As this piece attests, although their affair had cooled off since the 1920s, Einstein remained in contact with her following her emigration to the United States.

The wide-ranging collection of essays found in the present volume "indicates that Albert Einstein’s life and work are not confined to the problems of science alone; he is endowed with the awareness of the most urgent questions of modern society: Social, religious, education and racial relationships."

Octavo (214 x 138mm). (A few spots of browning at margins of first several pages.) Original blue cloth with signature stamped in gilt on upper cover; printed dustjacket (light dustsoiling, marginal chips and small tears at upper margin, some fraying and chipping at folds). Provenance: Estella Katzenellenbogen (inscription) – Konrad Kellen — by descent to the consignors.