 Being a scholarly and academic, historical-critical () edition, most "MEGA" volumes consist of separate text and appendix books, the latter giving additional information on the edited text.All material in "MEGA" is edited in the original language, resulting in mostly German- but also a considerable quantity of English- as well as French-language texts.Initiated by the Institutes of Marxism-Leninism of the SED in Berlin and the CPSU in Moscow and published by "Dietz Verlag" (Berlin) as a series launched in 1975, "MEGA" contains all works published by Marx and Engels in their lifetimes and numerous previously unpublished manuscripts and letters.