[2] The dedication reads: "A ma chère petite Chouchou, avec les tendres excuses de son Père pour ce qui va suivre.

[3] The suite was published by Durand in 1908, and was given its world première in Paris by Harold Bauer on 18 December that year.

[1] In 1911, an orchestration of the work by Debussy's friend André Caplet received its premiere, and was subsequently published.

The title of the first movement alludes to sets of piano exercises of that name (Gradus ad Parnassum translates as "Steps to Parnassus"), several of which had been published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including one by the prolific publisher of piano exercises Carl Czerny, and Muzzio Clementi.

Debussy's "Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum" is of intermediate difficulty and requires the ability to play more quickly and wildly.

[3] This work describes an elephant, Jumbo, who came from the French Sudan and lived briefly in the Jardin des plantes in Paris around the time of Debussy's birth.

The piece's title—referring to a porcelain doll—alongside its delicacy, prominent featuring of bare fifths, the pentatonic scale, and parallel fourths, mark it as an example of chinoiserie.

The opening bars turn the famous half-diminished Tristan chord into a jaunty, syncopated arpeggio,[5] while the middle 'B' section of this dance is interrupted on several occasions by the love-death leitmotif, marked avec une grande émotion (with great feeling).