This complete edition of Beethoven's correspondence has been edited by Sieghard Brandenburg on commission from the Beethoven House in Bonn. It forms a milestone in the study of Beethoven, being the first complete edition in German to be compiled and fully annotated in accordance with modern scholarly-critical criteria. The edition includes all of Beethoven's known letters (1,789 items of primary correspondence), all obtainable letters written to him (370 items of secondary correspondence) and numerous documents written on Beethoven's behalf by third parties (163 items of tertiary correspondence). It provides the text in a diplomatic transcription critically corroborated against the original sources, including deleted passages, addresses and drafts. The texts are presented in chronological order in six volumes and are made readily accessible by a seventh volume containing indices of names, places, works, senders, recipients, and text incipits as well as a list of sources and concordances to other editions of Beethoven's letters.