john spencer, summed up his massive contribution in 1997: "nowadays williams is best known as a writer on criminal law, where his fame rests on four books, the influence of which has been enormous. first among these stands his criminal law: the general part (1953), a 900-page text concerned, as he explained in the preface, "to search out the general rules of the criminal law, i.e. those applying to more than one crime". the proof of guilt (1955) is a comparative account of the rules by which criminal cases are tried in england and wales, penetrating in its analysis of the merits of our system as well as its defects.