We have found that a-phenoxyacetophenones readily undergo the Mannich reaction. A survey of the literature's2 indicated that substituted acetophenones of this type have not been used in this reaction. The compounds used in the present work were a- phenoxyacetophenone, various ring-substituted a-phenoxyacetophenones and a- phenoxypropiophenone. The general reaction may be depicted as
