The volume consists of two parts. The first one comprises all positions that include folk melodies with the piano accompaniment published by Kolberg in the years 1842-1849 and in 1862. The second one collects all preserved manuscripts arranged in the same way or composed for the piano only. The material included in both parts concerns the early stage of Kolberg’s interests in folklore what is indicated by an arrangement of folk melodies, peculiar to that period of time. The first publication of ‘Pieśni ludu polskiego’ [Songs of the Polish People] printed by Żupański in Poznań and in the journal ’’Przyjaciel Ludu’ in Leszno were supposed to be a complement to  the collections of song texts without melodies or with small amount of tunes. The songs printed by Żupański and ‘Pieśni ludowe do śpiewu’ [Folk Songs for Singing] constituting a valuable document of folk music could also serve to popularize the folk music since they were published as musical prints. The other materials provided with descriptions of customs and rites have clearly documentary character. Almost all of the notations of the melodies included in the volume (totally 635) come from Kolberg’s own research; only three Lithuanian melodies excerpted from the works of F. Zatorski (Nos. 228, 229) and K. Brzozowski (No. 230) are an exception. At the end of the volume there is information about the publication of ‘Pieśni ludu polskiego’ [Songs of the Polish people] and ‘Pieśni ludowe do śpiewu’, reviews by M. A. Szulc and K. Libelt, indexes and a list of printed and manuscript sources which comprises references to adequate notes in the regional volumes.