The 12-year gap between the appearance of the 19th edition (1984) and the eagerly awaited current 20th edition of Scrutton is an extremely long time in maritime law and chartering practice. The inconvenience caused to practitioners was compounded by the absence of any updating supplements. However Scrutton, at a venerable 112 years of age, has now reached and passed its centenary and remains the most authoritative work in its field for its longevity if nothing else. Scrutton has once again very recently been cited with approval by Lord Lloyd of Berwick in the House of Lords in The Giannis NK [1998] 2 W.L.R. 206.

The unnecessarily lengthy delay in publishing the 20th edition has inevitably witnessed many and varied changes in the editorial team in both composition and professional emphasis. The death in 1990 of Sir Alan Mocatta after 45 years as editor and the decision by Lord Mustill to relinquish editorship has left Stewart Boyd, Q.C., as the sole editorial link with previous editions. Andrew Burrows and David Foxton are, however, worthy and distinguished successors and have provided some thoughtful academic emphasis and insight, largely (and somewhat unhelpfully placed) in the notes to the main text.

The interregnum between the 19th and 20th editions has also witnessed the appearance of new young pretenders to take the place of the 13th and now outdated final edition of Carver’s Carriage by Sea, published in 1982. The pretenders include the two companion volumes of Voyage Charters (1993) by Cooke, Young, Taylor et al and the 4th edition of Time Charters (1995) by Wilford, Coghlin and Kimball and the looseleaf Contracts for the Carriage of Goods by Land Sea and Air (1993) (Vol. 1), all published by LLP. The modern monograph arrangement of the competitor works and the systematic and ordered reference to clauses in the standard forms of charterparty and bills of lading (now almost inevitably employed in the chartering industry) compares favourably with the academic arrangement of Scrutton.

Scrutton makes only limited reference to standard printed forms of charterparty in general (Art. 12) and in particular only one reference to the most common Gencon form of voyage charter (p. 153) and contains only two references to the most common NYPE form of time charter (p. 175 n. 3 and p. 364). The main features peculiar to time charters are, however, separately examined in the short space of 21 pages in Sect. XVI of the text. This appears to reflect the chartering practices of the 19th rather than the late 20th century.

The arrangement of Scrutton in digest form into articles providing a statement of the existing law followed by editorial notes on more uncertain matters and the (very occasionally) helpful (but mostly distracting) case summaries has the advantage of familiarity. However, it is not user-friendly, requiring frequent (and not always logical) navigation between different articles.

The cross-references within the text are in some cases cryptic to say the least and in many cases only an expert could divine their meaning. The understandable reluctance of the editors to rewrite