Accounting standards used to be brief and sensible. Professor David Myddelton discovers an age before IFRS.

At a recent conference organised by the ICAEW I had a very pleasant surprise. The conference papers included a publication called Principles Before Standards edited by Stephen Zeff. It contained, among other things, all 29 of the so-called ‘N Series’ recommendations issued by the institute to its members between 1942 and 1969. They make an instructive contrast with our current accounting standards.