Hamiltonian decompositions of complete graphs

It is well known that K_{2n + 1} can be decomposed into n edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles. A novel method for constructing Hamiltonian decompositions of K_{2n + 1} is given and a procedure for obtaining all Hamiltonian decompositions of of K_{2n + 1} is outlined. This method is applied to find a necessary and sufficient condition for a decomposition of the edge set of K_r (r ≤ 2n) into n classes, each class consisting of disjoint paths to be extendible to a Hamiltonian decomposition of K_{2n + 1} so that each of the classes forms part of a Hamilton cycle.