The purpose of this book is to thoroughly prepare the reader for research in string theory at an intermediate level.  As such it is not a compendium of results but intended as textbook in the sense that most of the material is organized in a pedagogical and self-contained fashion.    Beyond the basics, a number of more advanced topics are introduced, such as conformal field theory, superstrings and string dualities - the text does not cover applications to black hole physics and cosmology, nor strings theory at finite temperatures. End-of-chapter references have been added to guide the reader wishing to pursue further studies or to start research in well-defined topics covered by this book.