It is never easy to write a book introducing a subject: it needs to be as complete and as simple as possible all at once. The job is harder still when there is no general work on the subject already, but only a host of smaller works on points of detail which far from cover the whole area, even taken together. Previous attempts by scholars to write an introduction have tended to focus on certain topics (as, for example, Metzger 1968 and Aland–Aland 1982).

In France, Jean Duplacy had gathered together over a period of twenty years or so a good deal of the material necessary for a general introduction to the textual criticism of the New Testament which would have constituted the foundation of a new handbook on the subject. But his work, though extensive, was never completed. Meanwhile, the need for such a handbook continued to be felt, and so when I was approached by Les Editions du Cerf, I agreed to revise and update the Introduction by Léon Vaganay.

There were two reasons behind my choice. First, fifty years after its first publication, this book is still the most clear-sighted survey of the subject. There was no point in looking for anything more elaborate which would have required considerable re-working.