Basic Biographical Facts
Rene Descartes was born March 31, 1596 at La Haye, near
Tours, France and educated at the
Jesuit school
La Fleche, in
Anjou. He travelled in his youth, and lived for most of his life in
Holland. In the winter of 1649, he moved to
Sweden at the request of
Queen Christina, to become her tutor, and within a year was dead of
pneumonia (February 11, 1650).
Descartes' Works, partial chronological listing
Rules for the Direction of the Mind composed 1628.
The World or Treatise on Light and Treatise on Man -- Descartes began work on these in 1629, but abandoned plans to publish them when Galileo was condemned, 1633.
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and Seeking the Truth in the Sciences published 1637, as a preface to the Optics, Meterology, and Geometry (separate essays). (This work is often called Discourse on Method; current scholars prefer the more accurate nickname Discourse on the Method.)
Meditations on First Philosophy published, together with first six sets of Objections and Replies, in 1641.
Principles of Philosophy published 1644
Comments on a Certain Broadsheet published, begins work on Description of the Human Body 1647
Conversation with Burman, later transcribed by Burman, occurs 1648
The Passions of the Soul published 1649
The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light was found unfinished at the time of Descartes' death.
Descartes also carried on a lengthy and philosophically rich correspondence with such figures as Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, and others.
Standard Method of Citation
In the margins of most translations, and referred to in scholarly papers, you'll find AT numbers -- these refer to the page numbers as set in the 12-volume Ouvres de Descartes, edited by Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, revised edition published 1964-1976. Using these numbers, people using different editions and different translations (even in different languages) can tell each other where to find a given passage in whatever book they're using.
Standard Editions of Descartes' Works
Descartes wrote in both French and Latin. If you're reading Descartes seriously, it's crucial to use a good translation of his work, as important details can be obscured or entirely deleted in a sloppy translation. The standard English translation of Descartes' philosophical works is the excellent translation by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (it is generally referred to as CSM), published by Cambridge in 1985. This supercedes the previous standard edition, translated by Elisabeth Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (referred to as HR) and published by Cambridge in 1911. Complete citations for these:
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols.; tr. Cottingham, Stoothoff, Murdoch; Cambridge 1985.
The Philosophical Works of Descartes; tr. Haldane, Ross; Cambridge 1911 (reprinted 1931).
My chronology, above, is largely drawn from the CSM volume.