This is meant to be an authoritative edition. It includes all Anti-Federalist pamphlets that I have been able to find, all substantial newspaper essays and series of essays, some of the most important speeches by Anti-Federalists in ratifying conventions (though there is no claim of or need for comprehensiveness here), and some manuscript notes. About two-thirds of the items have never been printed since their original publication in 1787 and 1788, including a number of pieces that are of major importance in the Anti-Federal corpus... I have, of course, given a good deal of thought to the great length of this collection, though it was always understood that it would be more than one volume. I would have preferred it shorter; but there is, I think, no way to accomplish that that does not strike at the heart of the basic conception of this enterprise from the beginning: that all of the substantial Anti-Federalists pieces should be made available in their entirety and in an accurate text. Some of the most important series of essays, such as Centinel, and the Letters from the Federal Farmer, and Brutus, and A () Federal Farmer, are very long. There is no possibility of omitting these or of abridging them without destroying a prime value of the collection.〔2. Prefatory Notes "The Complete Anti-Federalist", Vol 1, p. xix, xx.〕