Although the titles differ, these two books are essentially similar in their size and coverage. Both contain a selection of about 25 statutes and some other material on the general area of commercial law. The Butterworths book also contains a series of “Notes” on each section, but these are mostly limited to derivations, commencement dates and titles of regulations. The Blackstone book contains no annotation of any kind. The Butterworths book has a contents page subdivided by subject area and an index of key words. The indexing of the Blackstone book is little more than a list of statutes.

The notion of producing compilations of statutes is not a new one. Many educational courses deal with extensive areas of statutory material and it is obviously helpful for students to have it before them for reference during classes and study times. This is particularly true of the general commercial law area. Purchasing various Acts from HMSO is both cumbersome and very expensive. As Parliament insists on passing legislation which amends or replaces sections in previous Acts, such books are very useful in incorporating those changes without one having to look at several different Queen’s Printers’ Acts to find the latest version. These compilations provide students with a handy reference work at a very modest cost. When they can also be taken into examinations, as is increasingly the case, the benefit is doubled (although annotations are not always a good idea for this reason). Even practitioners often find these types of work useful as a handy reference where everything they are likely to need is in one place.

As both editors note in their respective Prefaces, the choice of what is included and excluded in such a work is a difficult one. There are many degree and lower level courses taught under the title Commercial Law. There are equally relevant courses taught under such titles as Personal Property, Sale of Goods, Consumer Law, etc. The only common feature of these is that their syllabuses vary widely. Thus, any selection made will please only some of the people some of the time. Given this as a basis, it is perhaps surprising that there are some 20 Acts of Parliament common to both works, and amounting in each case to some two thirds of the whole. Beyond the common ground, the Butterworths book has more materials of interest to consumer protection lawyers, whereas the Blackstone book concentrates on materials in insurance law and international trade. The Butterworths book has some limited EC material, whereas the Blackstone book has UN Conventions. Given the personal interests of the particular editors, these variations are natural. In both cases the title of the work clearly justifies the inclusion. There is no material which does not appear in either work that anyone could regard as essential. The common core covers all the central