Volume 39 of the complete edition launched by EMB in 1970 makes accessible transcriptions made by the elderly master between 1879 and 1885. The volume includes transcriptions from works by Russian composers (a Tchaikovsky transcription, the Polonaise from the opera Eugene Onegin) transcriptions of a work each by Schumann and Schubert, the Réminiscences de Boccanegra (Verdi), and Liszt's last operatic fantasy, from Wagner's Parsifal: Feierlicher Marsch zum heiligen Gral.

The two versions of this volume are published as customary in a hard blue clothbound edition and soft paper bound edition. A detailed description of the sources and the critical commentary are in the clothbound edition. At the beginning of both versions of the volume are reproductions of pages from Liszt's original manuscripts; more than being simply illustrations, these permit a deeper insight into excerpts of the works given.