In the thesis, the author traces the historical development of descriptive set theory from the work of H. Lebesgue to the introduction of projective descriptive set theory. Proofs of most of the major results are given. Topics covered include Corel lattices, universal sets, the operation A, analytic sets, coanalytic sets, and the continuum hypothesis The appendix contains a translation of the famous letters exchanged between R. Baire, E. Borel, J. Hadamard and H. Lebesgue concerning Zermelo's axiom of choice.