<DIV><p class="textbasic"> A year after the publication of Dicey's <b><i>Law of the Constitution</i></b>, William Gladstone was reading it aloud in the House of Commons, citing it as authority. It remains, to this day, a starting point for the study of the English Constitution and comparative constitutional law. </p> <p class="textbasic"> <b><i>Law of the Constitution</i></b> elucidates the guiding principles of the modern constitution of England: the legislative sovereignty of Parliament, the rule of law, and the binding force of unwritten conventions. Dicey's goal was "to provide students with a manual which may impress these leading principles on their minds, and thus may enable them to study with benefit in Blackstone's <I>Commentaries</I> and other treatises of the like nature those legal topics which, taken together, make up the constitutional law of England." </p> <p class="textbasic"> <b>Albert Venn Dicey</b> (1835–1922) was Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford University from 1882 to 1909. </p></div>