There has been very considerable progress in research into low-mass
stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets during the past few years,
particularly since the fist edtion of this book was published in 2000.
In this new edtion the authors present a comprehensive review of both
the astrophysical nature of individual red dwarf and brown dwarf stars
and their collective statistical properties as an important Galactic
stellar population. Chapters dealing with the observational properies of
low-mass dwarfs, the stellar mass function and extrasolar planets have
been completely revised. Other chapters have been significantly revised
and updated as appropriate, including important new material on
observational techniques, stellar acivity, the Galactic halo and field
star surveys. The authors detail the many discoveries of new brown
dwarfs and extrasolar planets made since publication of the first
edition of the book and provide a state-of-the-art review of our current
knowledge of very low-mass stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets,
including both the latest observational results and theoretical work.