This book is a thoroughly 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. However, some editing to the text has been done to remove obvious typographical errors and to harmonize the spelling of Gurdjieff's many invented names and neologisms to align with the later published version of this classic literary work.

This is an alternative or revised version of the manuscript. It has been published at the request of some readers of the original manuscript who wished to see the neologisms (Gurdjieff's invented words) in their original form rather than altered to conform to the 1950 text, as is the case in the other version of this book.

In addition, a full index is provided, almost to the level of a concordance. It documents all changes to the neologisms and all edits, aside from typographical corrections made to the text.

The attraction of this publication lies in the fact that although Gurdjieff approved this original edition for publication and hence regarded his writing effort as almost complete, he subsequently made significant changes to many parts of it, and hence reading the 1931 Manuscript at times feels as though one is reading a different book, but one that nevertheless bears the mark of its author.