The list was compiled by Cuvelier between 1926 and 1934 when he was inspector of schools for the Redemptorist Order in the Belgian Congo.
Cuvelier's personal papers, now housed at the Catholic University at Leuven (or Louvain) in Belgium, contain a considerable number of his original manuscripts from which the book was published, normally in school notebooks entitled "Mvila".
The book was first published in 1934 at the mission's press, and a second edition was brought out under the same name in the missionary newspaper Kukiele in 1944.
Following Cuvelier's death in 1962, his colleague Joseph de Munck brought out a fourth edition in 1972, which contained all the changes of the earlier ones, as well as a slightly reorganized format.
John Thornton, "The Origins and Early History of the Kingdom of Kongo, c. 1350-1550," International Journal of African Historical Studies 34/1 (2001): 89-120.