The Second Edition of Benjamin’s Sale of Goods updates a work which, since its publication in 1974, has been the leading practitioners’ text on the subject. The work has its roots in Judah Benjamin’s Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property, first published in 1868 and appearing in new editions in substantially the same form as the original, albeit with declining regularity, until 1950. The 1974 edition of Benjamin had little in common with its predecessors other than the use of the original author’s name, retained largely as an aid to marketing; in the place of the uneasily modernised case-orientated approach was substituted an exhaustive account of the law relating to the sale of goods as it operated in practice. The new work, which was produced by a most distinguished panel of six editors under the general editorship of Professor Guest, received critical acclaim, subject to minor strictures relating to omitted authorities and inadequate cross-referencing between sections (both perhaps inevitable in a new work given the size of the task and the number of editors).

The Second Edition of Benjamin’s Sale of Goods has been produced by the same learned team of editors and in the same form as the first. It is of interest to note that the original intention of the publishers had been to keep the 1974 edition up to date by the publication of supplements, as is the practice with other works in the Common Law Library series. In the event no supplements appeared. Lest it be assumed by those faced with a bill for £65, for what is basically an update of a tome costing £45, that they have been unfairly treated, it must be pointed out that developments since 1974 and particularly the consolidation of previous legislation in the Sale of Goods Act 1979 would have necessitated the production of a supplement both costly to produce and excessively unwieldy to use. A new edition was the only sensible possibility, and the editors have taken the opportunity to rewrite those chapters affected by statutory, case law and practical developments as well as to include new sections where necessary and to correct the faults of the previous edition mentioned above (incidentally, it is not clear whether the publishers intend to keep this new edition in date by supplementation).

The first half of the work is devoted to the general principles laid down by the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and complementary legislation. Here, developments since 1974