This book contains selected papers from the international conference ‘Groups - St Andrews 1981’, which was held at the University of St Andrews in July/August 1981. Its contents reflect the main topics of the conference: combinatorial group theory; infinite groups; general groups, finite or infinite; computational group theory. Four courses, each providing a five-lecture survey, given by J. Neubuser (Aachen), D. J. S. Robinson (Illinois), S. J. Tobin (Galway) and J. Wiengold (Cardiff), have been expanded into articles, forming the first part of the book. The second part consists of surveys and research articles written by other conference participants. More than two-thirds of the book is composed of survey articles providing a remarkably clear and up-to-date picture of those areas of group theory. The articles which comprise this book, together with their extensive bibliographies, will prove an invaluable tool to researchers in group theory, and, in addition, their detailed expositions make them very suitable for relevant postgraduate courses.