This book will be your guide as you embark on the study of organic chemistry. For most of you, this will be your first encounter with the chemistry of organic compounds, and for many of you it will be your last. For many of you, this course is a requirement of your course of study. This is true for those who will enter professional colleges in the health sciences, for example. For others, organic chemistry will become your profession. I have found it a rewarding one, and to those who will become organic chemists I wish you the same enjoyment out of your careers that I have had from mine.