This book is an edited version of the original 1931 Manuscript of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by G. Gurdjieff.  The text is, for the most part, unchanged from the original manuscript that was published in a limited edition in 1931 under the direction of A. R. Orage. Many typos were corrected and it  was necessary to make some changes for the sake of structure and readability. We also substituted the neologisms in the manuscript with those from the 1950 version of The Tales providing notes as to exactly what had been changed for what and where.

(A second version has also been published that leaves the neologisms as they were.) A full index is provided in both versions, almost to the level of a concordance. The book documents all changes to the neologisms and all edits, aside from typographical corrections made to the text.

The text of The 1931 Manuscript edition is significantly different to The Tales in some areas, including the appearance of a whole part-chapter on Termosses, which is not found in the later 1950 published version. The text is significantly different in places and in a few places the order of the content is different at the paragraph level. Reading The 1931 Manuscript at times feels as though one is reading a different book, but one that nevertheless was forged by Gurdjieff himself.