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This book is an extended and revised version of lecture notes from a course taught by F. Bogomolov at the Courant Institute in the fall term of 1995. Designed for beginning graduate students, it aims to provide an introduction to the modern theory of algebraic curves over an arbitrary field, together with a treatment of those fundamental concepts of general algebraic geometry that are absolutely indispensable for studying the special case of one-dimensional algebraic varieties. As it is very common -- and didactically appropriate -- for introductory courses in advanced algebraic geometry, especially when both the amount of time and the necessary background knowledge of the audience are in narrow limits, the authors have tried to focus on some (particularly appealing and digestible) selected topics, on the one hand, and to keep the expenditure of the general framework of abstract algebraic geometry to an attainable minimum, on the other hand. Following this explicitly declared strategy of theirs, and leaving the character of the book as lecture notes basically intact, the authors have presented a highly interesting, individual and remarkably profound first introduction to the theory of algebraic curves. Once again: the book under review is by no means intended to be a comprehensive text on the geometry of algebraic curves, much less so in its many-sided classical and contemporary aspects, but merely a special introduction to algebraic geometry guided by the example of algebraic curves and their unique, fascinating properties from the purely algebraic viewpoint. In this vein, the main objects of study in this book are exclusively smooth affine or projective curves, together with their allied purely algebraic counterparts such as one-dimensional rings and function fields. This allows the authors, very often so in a stunning way, to use comparatively elementary ad-hoc approaches instead of the usual, more general (and technically more involved) standard tools. This is no doubt to the benefit of the unexperienced reader, as it leads him/her with less effort to some of the deep results on curves, grants an enlightening glimpse to what algebraic geometry is all about, and encourages the beginner to continue his/her studies at a more general and advanced level, perhaps by following the authors' abundant hints for further reading. Actually, this is precisely the goal that the authors are aspiring to, neither more or less, and they achieve it in a very original, carefully thought out and well done manner, being fully aware of the fact that their serviceable ad-hoc approach is entailing sundry drawbacks, too, in particular with regard to the underlying principles, concepts, and methods of both modern curve theory and algebraic geometry as a whole. As to the contents, the book consists of ten chapters, each of which is subdivided into several sections. Chapter 1 provides the necessary prerequisites from commutative algebra for basic algebraic geometry, including Noetherian and Artinian rings, field extensions, integral extensions of rings, and one-dimensional rings and function fields. Chapter 2 is devoted to the fundamentals of affine and projective algebraic varieties, their morphisms and rational maps, function fields, dimension theory, and local algebra. Chapter 3 turns then immediately to algebraic curves as one-dimensional varieties. The focus is here on the mainly algebraic aspects, especially on valuation theory, completions of fields, normalization, constructing curves from given function fields of transcendence degree one, and the correspondence between one-dimensional subrings of function fields and affine curves. All this is presented in great detail, rigor, and lucidity. Chapter 4 gives an introduction to the abstract formalism of divisors and line bundles on curves, Picard groups, Grothendieck's \(K_0\)-group, and Lüroth's theorem for curves. The last section of this chapter also touches briefly upon line bundles over projective spaces, just as an informal illustration of the foregoing abstract machinery. Chapter 5 treats the more general framework of vector bundles and coherent sheaves on curves, together with a brief discussion of torsion sheaves and extensions of vector bundles. The last two sections of this chapter give a simple but very efficient ad-hoc description of the zero and first cohomology of a coherent sheaf over a projective curve, that is only just as much as needed for treating the one-dimensional case. Although the presentation of the material of this chapter is abstract enough, without much motivation or illustration for relaxation, the authors manage to avoid any sophisticated cohomology techniques, which is indeed a facilitation for the beginner in the field. Chapter 6 explains the geometry of vector bundles on the projective line, including Grothendieck's splitting theorem for vector bundles, the Riemann-Roch theorem for coherent sheaves on \(\mathbb{P}^1\), and the exact cohomology sequence for such sheaves. The Riemann-Roch theorem for line bundles on a projective curve is proven in chapter 7, followed by its generalization to arbitrary vector bundles and some further computations for the first cohomology. Chapter 8 is devoted to the special cases of elliptic and hyperelliptic curves in their algebraic setting. This includes their respective normal forms as well as the realization of an elliptic curve as a projective plane cubic. Chapter 9 returns to the Riemann-Roch theorem and reconsiders it in greater detail. The authors introduce the canonical bundle in a very clever and unconventional way, namely as a line bundle of maximal degree with non-vanishing first cohomology group, and they derive the Serre duality theorem along this line, that is in just as original a way. The final chapter, chapter 10, represents the most innovative, unique and fascinating part of the entire text. Based upon a manuscript written by F. Bogomolov and D. Husemoller, the authors tender two proofs of the beautiful but mystic theorem of the late \textit{G. Belyi} (1951-2001). This theorem states that a complex algebraic curve is defined over an algebraic number field if and only if it is a covering of \(\mathbb{P}^1\) ramified only over the locus \(\{0,1,\infty\}\). Although this final chapter touches upon a subject that appears as being slightly out of place, in regard of the main body of the book, it is probably the just most valuable and extraordinary portion of the entire text. Each chapter of the book comes with a brief summary and a list of references for further study. Without any doubt, these lecture notes on algebraic curves and their function fields serve their declared purpose very well, at least so for those readers who are bright, eager, self-motivated and sufficiently experienced in abstract mathematical thinking. This is because the text is not particularly example-driven, rather abstract and quite demanding, sometimes very informal, and without any exercises for self-control. On the other hand, seasoned and self-supporting graduate students will find these original lecture notes very useful, inspiring, pleasantly challenging and profitable. At any rate, this highly original and unconventional introduction to algebraic curves is certainly a delight for mathematical gourmets and fanciers, who are able to recognize and estimate its unique and outstanding flavour, and it is surely both an interesting change and a great enhancement within the existing introductory literature on the subject.