A formal prerequisite for an effective reading of this book, especially the chapter on Teichmüller spaces, is familiarity with the most basic facts of set theory, general topology, complex analysis of one and several variables, Sobolev spaces, and linear algebra. The purpose of this chapter is not to establish these results but to clarify terminology and notation, and to give the reader a survey of the material that will be assumed as known in the sequel. In addition, some of the literature is noted out where adequate information and further references can be found.