It is said that Landau composed much of the series in his head while in an NKVD prison in 1938–1939. However, almost all of the actual writing of the early volumes was done by Lifshitz, giving rise to the witticism, "not a word of Landau and not a thought of Lifshitz". The first eight volumes were finished in the 1950s, written in Russian and translated into English in the late 1950s by John Stewart Bell, together with John Bradbury Sykes, M. J. Kearsley, and W. H. Reid. The last two volumes were written in the early 1980s. Vladimir Berestetskii [ ru ] and Lev Pitaevskii also contributed to the series. The series is often referred to as " Landau and Lifshitz ", " Landafshitz " (Russian: "Ландафшиц"), or " Lanlifshitz " (Russian: "Ланлифшиц") in informal settings.