A copy of the first edition (1945) can be browsed at https://archive.org/details/einsteintheoryof032414mbp/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/einsteintheoryof

A copy of the first edition (1945) can be browsed at https://archive.org/details/einsteintheoryof032414mbp/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/einsteintheoryof032414mbp/mode/2... Scanning through the 2008 edition (which you can find... elsewhere... like libgen), my favourite part is probably on p. 243 (in both editions, up to the change of pronouns; it's on the Internet Archive's page 256 of 342): "Is the reader wondering just what we are trying to do to her? Is this a subtle mental torture by which we alternatively frighten and console her? The fact is that we do want to frighten her sufficiently to make her realize the colossal amount of computation that is involved here, and yet to keep up her courage too by the knowledge that it does eventually boil down to a really simple form. She might not appreciate the final simple form if she did not know the labor that produced it. With this apology, we shall now proceed to indicate how the further simplification takes place." I didn't look much at the special relativity half of the book, but the second half, on general relativity, is a superb introduction and not nearly as old-fashioned as I would have expected. (Some of that is thanks to the editing done by David Derbes and Robert Jantzen for the 2008 edition, who made extensive Editors' Notes at the end of the book. Those notes are themselves superb, and should be read alongside any of the math-heavy later parts of the book.)