It was first published in 1843, after the composer's death, by Carl August Klemm in Leipzig, in a publication known as Fünf Klavierstücke (Five Piano Pieces).
[1] In the first edition of the Deutsch catalogue all five pieces were grouped under the same number 459.
In the extant autograph of the first piece, Allegro moderato, Schubert however wrote Sonate on top of the page, and continues in the same manuscript with an incomplete version of the second piece, the first Scherzo.
[2] Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl follows Klemm in his assertion that he compiled the pieces for his 1843 publication from a number of different Schubert compositions.
Lindmayer concludes that the work is "fragmentary", because Schubert had broken off the sonata at the close of the development section of the second movement.