Book excerpt: The year 2001 marks the centenary of Biometrika, one of the world's leading academic journals in statistical theory and methodology. In celebration of this, the book brings together two sets of papers from the journal. The first comprises seven specially commissioned articles (authors: D.R. Cox, A.C. Davison, Anthony C. Atkinson and R.A. Bailey, David Oakes, Peter Hall, T.M.F. Smith, and Howell Tong). These articles review the history of the journal and the most important contributions made by appearing in the journal in a number of important areas of statitisical activity, including general theory and methodology, surveys and time sets. In the process the papers describe the general development of statistical science during the twentieth century. The second group of ten papers are a selection of particularly seminal articles form the journal's first hundred years. The book opens with an introduction by the editors Professor D.M. Titterington and Sir David Cox.