The history of Liszt's intensely virtuosic and unwaveringly popular Transcendental Etudes dates back to his 12 Etudes which was composed around 1826. Liszt later reworked 11 pieces of this not-so-technically-difficult series into virtuoso concert etudes, and replaced one of the etudes with a new piece. This version was published in 1837 under the name Grandes études. However, Liszt reworked these 12 ''big'' etudes again: the final version of the series - in which, with two exceptions, the pieces were titled - was published in 1851 under the series title Études d'exécution transcendante.

Transcendental Etudes was the very first volume of the New Liszt Complete Critical Edition, and it was first published in 1970 based on the previous editions of the work. This edition includes footnotes highlighting common performance difficulties as well as English and German prefaces, facsimiles, and critical notes in English.