This comprehensive piano collection is perfect for advanced students, teachers, and music enthusiasts who want to explore the brilliance of classic ragtime. It can be used for performance study, technical development, or home practice, offering pianists an inspiring way to deepen their skills while playing historically significant works.
This edition brings together all thirty-eight of Scott Joplin’s original piano rags along with his six collaborations. It also includes his legendary instructional essay, the School of Ragtime, which provides valuable guidance on how to approach style, articulation, and feel. Each piece is reprinted from the original publisher’s edition and paired with its authentic sheet-music cover, creating a visually rich and historically accurate experience.
The collection supports artistic growth by helping players refine rhythm, elevate interpretive skills, and master Joplin’s distinctive syncopated writing. These rags offer both technical challenge and expressive depth, making the book a strong music teacher resource and an exciting repertoire source for solo performance. The carefully curated layout encourages consistent practice and motivates players to expand their ragtime understanding through recognizable classics.
Featuring iconic titles such as Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer, and many more, the book preserves Joplin’s creativity across a full spectrum of moods and character pieces. Whether used for recital work, skill refinement, or enrichment, it offers lasting musical value.
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Includes all 38 original Scott Joplin piano rags, six collaborative rags, and the School of Ragtime * and more.
Bring music to life. This complete edition is ideal for study, performance, and musical exploration, offering pianists a rewarding journey through one of America’s most enduring musical styles. It also makes a thoughtful gift for any music lover or collector.
Throughout history, few musical crazes have hit with such impact, had such a heyday and lingered so hauntingly as ragtime. Ragtime arrived on the upswing of Tin Pan Alley, when the popularity of pianos in the home was reaching its peak and an endless stream of sheet music flowed out to meet the demand. In the early 1900s, no name was more prominent on those sheet-music covers and no one wrote ragtime music more brilliantly than Scott Joplin.
This wonderful book brings together in one superbly produced playing edition all thirty-eight of Scott Joplin's piano rags, including his six collaborations, plus Joplin's own primer on how to play ragtime, the "School of Ragtime." Each rag has been reprinted, along with its sheet-music cover, from the original publisher's edition.
At the Williams' Brothers saloon in Sedalia, Missouri, Scott Joplin was known as "The Entertainer," and in 1897, in the upstairs room called the Maple Leaf Club, he wrote the rag that would one day be the first to sell over a million copies in sheet-music form. In time the "Maple Leaf Rag" also became the most recorded composition on piano roll, with forty known versions.
Most of Joplin's other rags were hits as well. Many bear the playful names that were given most rags, names like "The Strenuous Life," "Heliotrope Bouquet," and his last published piece, the "Silver Swan Rag." One of them, "The Entertainer," triggered a major revival of interest in his work when it was incorporated into the score of the popular film The Sting. All of them are here, each bearing the mark of Joplin's supreme originality. As ragtime authority David A. Jasen observes in his Introduction: "For pianists everywhere, this folio contains ragtime masterpieces which, when learned, will provide unlimited joy."
Original Dover (1988) publication, reprinted from sheet music for 38 piano rags originally issued by various music publishers. 39 illustrations. Introduction by David A. Jasen. "School of Ragtime" by Scott Joplin.
