Two years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, in 1787, the first and most comprehensive edition of Schiller's Don Carlos was published. Schiller worked on this single piece for almost his entire life. He repeatedly revised it, managing to give it a distinct form in each version. This edition reflects this ongoing process of work, offering all versions of the play and including Schiller's own justification of his conception. It documents and comments on the creation, sources, impact, and interpretative aspects of the drama as an essentially unfinished 'work in progress'.