The Complete Works

The Complete Works is a collection of all the cultural works of one artist, writer, musician, group, etc. For example, Complete Works of Shakespeare is an edition containing all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. A "Complete Works" published edition of a text corpus is normally accompanied with additional information and critical apparatus. It may include notes, introduction, a biographical sketch, and may pay attention to textual variants.

For other uses, see The Complete Works (disambiguation).
Title page from a 1739 volume of the Opera Omnia of Bernardino Ramazzini

Terminology

Complete works may be titled by a single word, "Works".[1] "Collected works" is often treated as a synonym. A distinction began to be seen clearly in the second half of the 18th century.[2]

The Latin language equivalent Opera Omnia, is still used in English, as for the works of Galen.[3] German usage distinguishes de:Gesamtwerk as a complete corpus, de:Gesamtausgabe for a published edition of the works, and Gesammelte Werke or collected works that may be selective in some way. A contrasting term is "selected works", which is a collection of works chosen according to some criterion, e.g., by prominence, or as a representative selection.

Examples
  • The first literary author to have "complete works" published, in the modern sense, has been identified as Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero, in 1637/8.[4]
  • The first critical complete edition of a musical composer's works has been identified as the Werke of Johann Sebastian Bach, published 1851 to 1926 by the Bach Gesellschaft at Leipzig, in 46 volumes.[5]
  • The Opera Omnia of the mathematician Leonhard Euler began publication in 1911, and continues in 2019.[6][7]
  • The Iwanami Shoten complete works of Natsume Sōseki, new edition, set up a Japanese model for complete works of other authors.[8]

References
  1. "Using Uniform Titles: Collective Titles" Archived 2010-05-28 at the Wayback Machine, University of Nebraska's Comprehensive Research Library
  2. Braber, Dr H. van den; Delft, drs M. van; Dijk, dr N. van; Glas, dr F. de; Keblusek, dr M. (2006). New Perspectives in Book History: Contributions from the Low Country. Uitgeversmaatschappij Walburg Pers. p. 67. ISBN 9789057304316.
  3. Galen, Claudius (1828). Opera Omnia. Leipzig: Carl Cnobloch.
  4. Braber, Dr H. van den; Delft, drs M. van; Dijk, dr N. van; Glas, dr F. de; Keblusek, dr M. (2006). New Perspectives in Book History: Contributions from the Low Country. Uitgeversmaatschappij Walburg Pers. p. 68. ISBN 9789057304316.
  5. Apel, Willi (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Harvard University Press. p. 281. ISBN 9780674011632.
  6. Dunham, William (1999). Euler: The Master of Us All. MAA. p. 175. ISBN 9780883853283.
  7. "Leonhard Euler, Opera Omnia".
  8. Buckley, Sandra (2009). The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture. Taylor & Francis. p. 223. ISBN 9780415481526.
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