Organic Chemistry

Inspiring and motivating students from the moment it published, Organic Chemistry has established itself in just one edition as the student's choice of an organic chemistry text.

The second edition refines and refocuses Organic Chemistry to produce a text that is even more student-friendly, coherent, and logical in its presentation than before.

Like the first, the second edition is built on three principles:

An explanatory approach, through which the reader is motivated to understand the subject and not just learn the facts;

A mechanistic approach, giving the reader the power to understand compounds and reactions never previously encountered;

An evidence-based approach, setting out clearly how and why reactions happen as they do, giving extra depth to the reader's understanding.

The authors write clearly and directly, sharing with the reader their own fascination with the subject, and leading them carefully from topic to topic. Their honest and open narrative flags pitfalls and misconceptions, guiding the reader towards a complete picture of organic chemistry and its universal themes and principles.

Companion Website (www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199270293/)

For students: A range of problems to accompany each chapter

For registered adopters of the text: Figures from the book in electronic format

Jonathan Clayden is a Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Manchester, where he and his research group work on the construction of molecules with defined shapes - in particular those where control of conformation and limitation of flexibility is important. Jonathan was awarded a BA (Natural Sciences) from Churchill College, Cambridge before completing his PhD with Stuart Warren, also at the University of Cambridge. He has been at the University of Manchester since 1994.


Nick Greeves is the Director of Teaching and Learning in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Liverpool. Nick is a Cambridge graduate, obtaining his PhD there in 1986 for work on the stereoselective Horner-Wittig reaction with Stuart Warren. He then held a Harkness Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at Stanford University, California, and a Research Fellowship at Cambridge University before joining Liverpool in 1989 where he is currently a Senior Lecturer.

Stuart Warren is a former lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Stuart completed his PhD at Cambridge with Malcolm Clark before carrying out post-doctoral research at Harvard University. He became a teaching fellow at Churchill College in 1971, and remained a lecturer and researcher at Cambridge until his retirement in 2006.