Classical algebraic geometry, inseparably connected with the names of Abel, Riemann, Weierstrass, Poincar , Clebsch, Jacobi and other outstanding mathematicians of the last century, was mainly an analytical theory. In our century the methods and ideas of topology, commutative algebra and Grothendieck's schemes enriched it and seemed to have replaced once and forever the somewhat naive language of classical algebraic geometry. This classic book, written...