Principles of Civil Procedure is an important scholarly treatment of the modern law of civil litigation. Its publication should be welcomed both for the quality of the systematic and analytical treatment which it provides and as a milestone in the evolution of thinking about civil procedure and legal education in England and Wales.

It is not, of course, that there is anything new in a lawyer writing about litigation. Registers and narrationes were compiled from an early period in the development of the common law. Books of entry and, later, texts on procedure and practice appeared in increasing numbers from the 16th century and were intended, like Neil Andrews’ book, for use by practitioners and students. This large literature includes works which, by the 19th century, dealt with most of the methods used in law’s empire. The range and volume of this literature are impressive, as is the quality of the best work, although most things published in this field before 1875 are now only of historical interest.

Good modern texts on specialist aspects of procedure can rival anything which was produced in the last century. But there has for some time been a need for the sort of general practitioners’ text