Today I received a flyer from Maritime Books listing some forthcoming publications.
Top of the list was Daring Class Destroyers by Neil McCart. This is the latest of his operational histories of RN warships and is described thus:
The Daring class was the final word in destroyer design - large and heavily armed. In fact so large were they, that they were more commonly referred to as Daring type ships rather than destroyers. This volume records the history of the eight ships built for the Royal Navy together with the service history of the three ships built for the Royal Australian Navy.
240 pages with 115 photographs. Price �28. Publication date not given.
Yes they do, but I find their output to be somewhat variable.
Maritime Books do seem to have good access to certain collections of photographs, notably Wright and Logan, but they don't seem to know what to do with them other than simply add captions.
Their paperback pictorial series, such as In Focus and To Sail No More, are too expensive for the quality of their photographic reproductions. The hardback series, such as Since 1900 and Built Warships, are much better though. Indeed the 3rd of the latter series, Vickers Barrow Built Warships, is listed on the flyer and is slated for a December release.
I subscribed to the first 6 issues of Warship World Pictorial Review, but have now sold them and will let the subscription lapse because I don't find endless photographs of present day naval exercises to be all that interesting. I had hoped for more historical photographs.
I never did buy the Battle Class Destroyers or Castle Class Corvettes books partly because of somewhat negative reaction from persons who shall remain nameless. But I trust McCart's book will be worth buying as I have happily collected all of his previous RN titles.
Maritime Books have published very good technical titles in the past, for example Cruisers Of The Royal And Commonwealth Navies, but it seems that these days they set their sights lower. Or can't attract authors. Or something.
I think they still haven't got the reputation as a top naval publisher yet, despite having the domain name navybooks and selling to a wide audience from it as a result and despite being at it for many years.
They do seem to publish many new and unknown authors though which is good and at least they try to publish books on RN warships in WW2, however their editorship and formats leave a lot to be desired.
I subscribe to their Warship World and the pictorial one as I find them far better than Navy News, or the USA warship magazines as they at least have some coverage on RN WW2 topics.
As a general rule I find it is never good to buy their new books straightaway as they are always over-priced.
I would recommend you to subscribe to warships by the World Ship Society for around �12-�13 per year, not for lots of historical photographs, but for good articles on RN warships of WW2 from respected authors.
