It was translated from a German-language book, Kombinatorische Geometrie in der Ebene, which its authors Hugo Hadwiger and Hans Debrunner published through the University of Geneva in 1960, expanding a 1955 survey paper that Hadwiger had published in L'Enseignement mathématique.

It was published in 1964 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston,[2] and republished in 1966 by Dover Publications.

[3] A Russian-language edition, Комбинаторная геометрия плоскости, translated by I. M. Jaglom and including a summary of the new material by Klee, was published by Nauka in 1965.

Klee's added chapter, lying between the two halves, provides another 10 propositions, including some generalizations to higher dimensions, and the book concludes with a detailed bibliography of its topics.

[6] One goal of the book is to expose students at this level to research-level problems in mathematics whose statement is readily accessible.