A few years after the publication of The Physics of Star Formation and Early Stellar Evolution, we received a request from the publisher for an up dated second edition of this popular reference book. As originally intended, the volume had proved to be a useful "text" book for graduate astronomy courses and seminars which dealt with topics related to stellar origins. The book was based on a series of lectures delivered by a distinguished group of leading researchers at a NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) held in May 1990 on the island of Crete, Greece. The primary goal of the ASI was in fact...