Notes on Series VII and VIII of the Leibniz-Edition (Q2314071)

Leibniz published little, but he wrote a lot. Some 100,000 pages of manuscripts are housed in the Leibniz Archive in Hanover and being gradually published in eight series in the so-called Academy Edition of Leibniz's \textit{Complete writings and letters}. Of these, Series VII covers mathematical and Series VIII natural scientific, medical and technical writings, respectively. Back in 1976, the author gained permission to edit the first two volumes (of a projected 30) of Series VII; these were to cover a portion of Leibniz's mathematical writing during the Parisian years of 1672 to 1676. Before publication, the Parisian papers had to be identified, sorted thematically and chronologically, and then studied and edited. Leibniz's papers are working documents rather than pre-publication drafts; they show him exploring, experimenting and developing ideas. They are written in technical seventeenth-century Latin in a crabbed hand full of erasures, crossings out, calculation errors and evolving notation. There are also undated. With fairly minimal state support (one full-time researcher at the archive later supplemented by an additional position) the editors faced a daunting task. In due course, Volume 1 (of Series VII) on geometry, number theory and algebra appeared in 1990, with Volume 2 (of Series VII) on algebra following in 1996 and five further volumes until today. In 1996, the author was commissioned to begin work on Series VIII with the additional goal of developing international cooperation. Despite some difficulties and delays in finding funding and scholars with a specialized skill-set, an international team was assembled with members from Paris, Moscow and St. Petersburg joining the German effort. However, the far-flung nature of the editorial team meant that they could not all be working at the archives in Hanover. Thus, a necessary process of digitization of the archival material began, initially to provide access for the editors, and subsequently to the wider scholarly world. The first volume of Series VIII appeared in 2009, with a second volume published in 2016. Along with this history of the Leibniz-Edition, the author details the difficulties of maintaining funding during times of political turmoil, finding and retaining suitable personnel, and also gives some particular examples of the editorial challenges of dealing with Leibniz's manuscripts. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1411.01011].