A shortened version of the title as published is usually given, but in a form that does not necessarily conform to its appearance in the relevant edition. OCVE does not provide quasi-facsimile transcriptions like those in the Annotated Catalogue of Chopin’s First Editions, which makes use of specially designed typographical characters unavailable on standard web browsers. Furthermore, the short-title formats in OCVE’s source descriptions do not preserve italics, small capitals or certain other typographical features, nor are line divisions or respective positions of blocks of text identified. Comparison with relevant title-page images and with the transcriptions in the Annotated Catalogue will therefore be necessary to gain the most accurate understanding of the published titles of the Chopin first editions.

By way of comparison, under the Witness overview of the German first edition of the Preludes Op. 28, the title is given as ‘Vingt-quatre Préludes pour le Piano, Op. 28’, whereas the quasi-facsimile transcription in the Annotated Catalogue appears as follows (in which | indicates a line break, while « and » denote respective positions on the line):

Vingt-quatre | PRÉLUDES | pour le Piano | dédiés à son ami | J. C. KESSLER | par | FRÉD. CHOPIN. | Oeuvre 28. « Propriété des Editeurs. » Pr. 2 Rthlr. | Leipsic, chez Breitkopf & Härtel. | Paris, chez Pleyel & C^o | 6088. | Enrégistré dans l’Archive de l’Union.