The publication of these lectures, which I delivered in Columbia University in the spring of 1906, has been unduly delayed, chiefly on account of my wish to give some further development to the subject so as to present it in a connected and fairly complete form; for this reason I have not refrained from making numerous additions. Nevertheless there are several highly interesting questions, more or less belonging to the theory of electrons, which I could but slightly touch upon. I could no more than allude in a note to Voigt's Treatise on magneto-optical phenomena, and neither Planck's views on radiation, nor Einstein's principle of relativity have received an adequate treatment.
In one other respect this book will, I fear, be found very deficient. No space could be spared for a discussion of the different ways in which the fundamental principles may be established, so that, for instance, there was no opportunity to mention the important share that has been taken in the development of the theory by Larmor and Wiechert.
Hendrik-Antoon LORENTZ, Preface