The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
GA 4
Bibliographical Note
- Rudolf Steiner's Die Philosophie der Freiheit was first published by the Emil Felber Verlag, Berlin. 1894 in a first edition of 1,000 copies.
- The second edition, revised and enlarged by the author, appeared under the imprint of the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, Berlin, 1918, and was followed by a third edition later that same year.
- The same publisher issued a fourth edition in 1921.
- The fifth, sixth and seventh editions were published in Dornach, Switzerland by the Philosophisch Anthroposophischer Verlag am Goetheanum in 1929, 1936 and 1939 respectively.
- The eighth edition was published in Dresden in 1940.
- The ninth, tenth and eleventh editions were published by the Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart in 1947, 1949 and 1955. The present translation has been made from the eleventh edition of 1955
- In all, the eleven editions of Die Philosophie der Freiheit issued between 1894 and 1955 totaled some 48,000 copies.
- A twelfth edition was issued in Dornach in 1962 by the Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung.
- The first English translation of the book appeared in London in 1916, translated by Prof. and Mrs. R. F. Alfred Hoernle and edited by Harry Collison. This was based on the first German edition of 1894.
- When the revised and enlarged German edition appeared in 1918, the same translators and editor brought out a second English translation of the work. This was published in London in 1921.
- A revised and amended edition of the 1921 version with preface by Hermann Poppelbaum, Ph.D. appeared in London, 1939 and again in 1949.
- The present translation is entirely new, having been undertaken especially for the Centennial Edition of the Written Works of Rudolf Steiner.