Introduction to the Theory of Bases

Since the publication of Banach's treatise on the theory of linear operators, the literature on the theory of bases in topological vector spaces has grown enormously. Much of this literature has for its origin a question raised in Banach's book, the question whether every sepa­ rable Banach space possesses a basis or not. The notion of a basis employed here is a generalization of that of a Hamel basis for a finite dimensional vector space. For a vector space X of infinite dimension, the concept