Francis A. Carey is a native of Pennsylvania, educated in the public schools of Philadelphia, at Drexel University (B.S. in chemistry, 1959), and at Penn State (Ph.D. 1963). Following postdoctoral work at Harvard and military service, he was appointed to the chemistry faculty of the University of Virginia in 1966. Prior to retiring in 2000, he regularly taught the two-semester lecture courses in general chemistry and organic chemistry. With his students, Professor Carey has published over forty research papers in synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry.

Professor Sundberg is primarily engaged in teaching and chemical education. Along with Francis A. Carey he is the author of "Advanced Organic Chemistry. Professor Sundberg is also interested in synthetic methodology in heterocyclic chemistry and is the author of "Indoles" in the Best Synthetic Methods Series (Academic Press, 1996).

Advanced Organic Chemistry has maintained its place as the premier textbook in the field, since its first appearance in 1977. This two-part, fifth edition has been substantially revised and reorganized for greater clarity. The material has been updated to reflect advances in the field since the previous edition, especially in computational chemistry. The material in Part A is organized on the basis of fundamental structural topics such as structure, stereochemistry, conformation and aromaticity and basic mechanistic types, including nucleophilic substitution, addition reactions, carbonyl chemistry, aromatic substitution and free radical reactions. It can stand-alone; together, with Part B: Reaction and Synthesis, the two volumes provide a comprehensive foundation for the study in organic chemistry.