Th e preface to the fi rst edition of this book explained that its aim was to give students as sound an understanding of the basics of contract law as possible and, equally importantly, of why the law is the way it is, in order that they might not only understand the current state of the law but be stimulated to form their own views on whether it is justifi - able. With that in mind, we made two choices when writing the fi rst edition. Th ese were, fi rst, that the book would focus both on the fundamentals of contract law and the rationales underlying them; second, that where the law was controversial in some respect, we attempted to set out in detail our opinions, and the opinions of others, on whether the rule in question is correct. In the second edition, we retained the basic ethos and structure of the fi rst edition, whilst at the same time tightening and distilling our treatment of some areas of the law, creating a book of more manageable size. Th is structure seems to have worked well and has been preserved in this latest edition, but we have also included chapter overviews and a problem question at the end of each chapter, which we hope will be helpful. Th e chapters on Incapacity and Illegality no longer appear in this edition (as these topics do not generally form part of undergraduate courses on the law of Contract) but are now available on the Online Resource Centre.