One Family Shelf, Three Distinct Voices
The Irving Books catalogue brings together work by three members of the Irving family, but it is not a single-subject collection. Commander John Irving wrote from inside the world of the Royal Navy and small-craft sailing. Beryl Irving moved between children's fiction, family reference, and illustration. In the following generation, David Irving built a much larger list around twentieth-century history, documents, diaries, and interviews.
That distinction matters. Commander John and Beryl were contemporaries, so the collection is more accurately understood as three creative voices across two generations. Read together, their books cover an unusually wide field: practical knowledge, naval tradition, fantasy and adventure, illustrated social history, archival research, and memoir.
The most useful way into the library is therefore not strict chronology. It is to choose the kind of reading you want and follow that thread.
Commander John Irving: A Working Knowledge of the Sea
Commander John Irving served as a Royal Navy officer and wrote about the naval world he knew. His shelf ranges from instruction to history and fiction, but the same attention to seamanship, language, and life aboard ship runs through it.
For Practical Seamanship
Coastal Navigation and Pilotage is the clearest starting point for chart work, pilotage, tides, buoys, and the practical decisions involved in coastal sailing. Navigation of Small Yachts narrows the focus to navigation in a small, moving vessel. Readers interested in the rules and customs around flags can continue with the concise Manual of Flag Etiquette.
These are not simply books about the romance of sailing. They preserve the vocabulary and procedures by which a vessel is actually handled.
For Naval Language and Tradition
Royal Navalese records the technical terms, slang, and expressions of the Royal Navy, while Naval Life and Customs turns to traditions and daily practice aboard His Majesty's ships. The King's Britannia adds the history of the royal yacht Britannia.
Together, these titles make a compact cultural record: not only what sailors did, but how their world sounded and how its customs were maintained.
For Naval History and Adventure
Readers drawn to the First World War can begin with Coronel and the Falklands, an account of two sharply contrasting early naval engagements, or The Smoke Screen of Jutland, Commander John's defence of Admiral Jellicoe's conduct at Jutland.
For younger readers, the Dick Valliant trilogy carries the same maritime setting into fiction. Naval Cadet, On Northern Patrol, and In the Dardanelles follow Midshipman Dick Valliant aboard the cruiser Argonaut during the Great War.
Beryl Irving: Story, Family Life, and Illustration
Beryl Irving's part of the library is smaller, but it changes the tone of the whole collection. Her books open routes into fantasy, coastal adventure, household life, and the visual character of the family archive.
Two Very Different Adventures
The Dawnchild, first published in 1926, is a restored children's fantasy in which the lonely Mig follows the mysterious Dawnchild towards Dawnland. Its strange bird, the Umpis, and the pursuit by Cousin Belinda place it firmly in the tradition of imaginative British children's literature.
Daffy Goes to Sea turns from fantasy to the coast. Daffy Hetherington's summer aboard the yacht Gent Peter becomes a treasure hunt involving rival crews, suspense, and nautical adventure. It pairs naturally with Commander John's Dick Valliant stories, while keeping its own lighter voice.
A Household Book—and an Illustrator's Hand
The Family Week-End Book, first published in 1941, gathers cooking, gardening, games, pets, etiquette, herb recipes, party ideas, and domestic advice. Today it can be read both as a usable compendium and as a record of family life in another period.
Beryl's contribution also extends beyond the books carrying her name as author. She illustrated Good Food, Philip Campbell Beatson Newington's cookbook assembled from meals remembered in the Changi and Sime Road internment camps, and her decorative work appears in Royal Navalese. Those images connect the domestic, literary, and naval parts of the family shelf without confusing authorship: Good Food is Newington's text, with Beryl Irving's illustrations.
David Irving: A Catalogue Organised Around Documents
David Irving's list is broader in scale and different in method. It centres on twentieth-century history and uses original documents, private papers, diaries, and interviews as its recurring source base. New readers will find it easier to choose by historical question than to work through the books in publication order.
For a Broad Entry Point
Hitler's War is the most substantial single introduction to this part of the catalogue. It draws on diaries and documents, together with decades of research and interviews with Hitler's generals and private staff. To follow the war from the British political side, continue with Churchill's War, Volume I: The Struggle for Power.
There is also a direct bridge back to Commander John's naval shelf. The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17 examines the Arctic convoy disaster of 1942 and the Admiralty decision that left merchant vessels exposed.
For Biography and Archival Investigation
Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich is built around the extensive Goebbels diary record and further archival research. Göring: A Biography draws on personal diaries, correspondence, and archive material, while True Himmler uses letters, diaries, documents, and interviews.
Readers who prefer a tightly defined event or investigation can turn to The Virus House on Germany's wartime nuclear programme; ACCIDENT: The Death of General Sikorski on the Polish prime minister's death in 1943; Nuremberg, the Last Battle on the post-war trial; or Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden, the subject of David Irving's first published book in 1963.
For a change of register, Banged Up is a memoir drawn from notes made during thirteen months in Austrian imprisonment in 2005–2006.
The Threads That Connect the Collection
The family library is varied, yet several habits recur. Specialist knowledge is turned into readable narrative. Reference books sit beside adventure stories. Documents and illustrations are treated as part of the record, not merely decoration. Modern editions return books to circulation that would otherwise be difficult to find.
The differences are just as valuable as the connections. Commander John's books preserve a particular maritime world. Beryl's fiction and artwork bring imagination and domestic life into the archive. David's catalogue shifts the emphasis to documentary history and investigation. The result is not one uniform programme, but a family shelf with several ways in.
Choose Your Starting Point
- For practical sailing: begin with Coastal Navigation and Pilotage, then move to Navigation of Small Yachts.
- For Royal Navy history and culture: pair The Smoke Screen of Jutland with Royal Navalese.
- For younger readers: choose the fantasy of The Dawnchild, the coastal adventure of Daffy Goes to Sea, or the Dick Valliant trilogy.
- For domestic and social history: read The Family Week-End Book alongside Good Food.
- For a broad Second World War route: start with Hitler's War, then read Churchill's War, Volume I for a contrasting centre of decision-making.
- For a focused archival study: choose Goebbels, The Virus House, or Convoy PQ-17 according to subject.
The dedicated Irving Family Archive gathers Commander John and Beryl Irving's current titles in one place. The David Irving profile and complete book list provides the corresponding route through the larger historical catalogue.
