The Guitar Studies

This is the first critical edition of Napoléon Coste's 25 Études de genre which has prepared from the correct source, his 1880 revised edition. It is also the first edition from this source to include a comprehensive critical commentary and apparatus.

Edited by Michael Macmeeken, it contains copious historical notes and documents and offers different readings and different versions of some of the Études.

The real text, Coste's original text from 1880, 'lost its way and continued to stray further' in the 20th Century and none of the 9 different editions examined for our critical commentary were based on the correct source, most used the Costallat 1902 edition edited by Cottin, not a bad edition by any means, but with confusing changes to the order of the Études, as well as Cottin's own personal changes and ommissions, his introducion new errors, and with some errors in the source edition left uncorrected.