Introduction

This chapter presents an anthology of selected work of Lawrence Robert Dicksee, Dicksee's Contribution to Accounting Theory and Practice. Dicksee's contributions can be classified into roughly three phases which were not mutually exclusive. From 1892 to 1904 Dicksee devoted most of his efforts to traditional subjects in auditing and financial accounting. The basic idea embedded in the ship model is the distinction between completed and uncompleted ventures, that is between a single-period accounting model and multi-period model. This idea is a fundamental one and Dicksee made further use of it in a later section of Advanced Accounting, 'Nature and Limitations of Accounts'. Auditing is Dicksee's best known book and has had the most influence on practice, both in Great Britain and the United States. Dicksee ended his illustrious career with a series of 18 articles, "Popular Fallacies", published in The Accountants' Journal during 1930 and 1931. The topics range from the nature of goodwill to fatigue and unemployment.