Collected works. Volume I: Set theory, miscellanea. Edited by Heinz-Dieter Ebbinghaus and Akihiro Kanamori (Q2654815)

The book under review is the first volume of a complete edition of the published works of Ernst Zermelo. It includes also selected correspondence and unpublished manuscripts. The edition appears in two volumes. The first one comprises Zermelo's published papers in set theory and the foundations of mathematics as well as isolated papers of an algebraic, analytic or number-theoretic character. The planned second volume will contain works in the calculus of variations, mathematical physics and fluid dynamics. The volume under review is supplemented by selected notes and manuscripts mainly from Zermelo's \textit{Nachlass}. Among them are also unpublished continuations of published works. Some writings by other authors have been included as well -- in particular by Landau and König. They include contributions actually written by Zermelo or react to criticism Zermelo had made. The editors declare that they leave open a possible edition of a third volume which could contain further unpublished works and letters from the \textit{Nachlass}. The volume is opened by a detailed biographical sketch of Zermelo's life and work together with a schematic \textit{curriculum vitae}. It contains 27 of Zermelo's papers, papers by Landau and König and four letters of Zermelo and one letter of Gödel to Zermelo as well as Zermelo's translation of Book V of Homer's \textit{Odyssey} into German blank verse. Zermelo's papers span the time between his first encounter with set theory around 1900 and the end of his mathematical research in the mid-1930s. Other selected items stem mainly from the early 1930s -- at that time Zermelo's foundational views were in growing opposition to the mainstream development in mathematical logic. All papers have been published in the languages in which they were originally written together with parallel English translations. They are preceded by introductory notes written by experts in the appropriate fields. Those notes are a crucial part of the edition. The volume is closed by an extensive bibliography (containing a full bibliography of Zermelo) and by a name index. Several pictures of Zermelo are included as well. The volume has been published in a beautiful and careful way. The editors confess that they found inspiration in the exemplary edition of Kurt Gödel's collected works published in 1986--2003 by Oxford University Press. The present edition of Zermelo's collected works crowns earlier attempts to collect his papers, in particular Zermelo's own attempts from 1912 and 1949 as well as the attempt of Gericke and Martin from the 1950s.