A gigantic task undertaken by J. F. Ritt and his collaborators in the 1930's was to give the classical theory of nonlinear differential equations, similar to the theory created by Emmy Noether and her school for algebraic equations and algebraic varities. The current book presents the results of 20 years of work on this problem. The book quickly became a classic, and thus far, it remains one of the most complete and valuable accounts of differential algebra and its applications.