Cyril Northcote Parkinson (July 30, 1909 - March 9, 1993) was a British historian and author of some sixty books. These included historical fiction, often based on the Napoleonic period, and sea stories. He is even more famous for his satire of bureaucratic institutions, notably his Parkinson's law and other studies. This is a collection of short studies explaining the inevitability of bureaucratic expansion, and includes a note on why driving on the left side of the road (see road transport) is natural.

As early as the 1930s Parkinson had successfully predicted that the Royal Navy would eventually have more admirals than ships.

Bibliography

Richard Delancy series

• Devil to Pay (1973)
• The Fireship (1975)
• Touch and Go (1977)
• Dead Reckoning (1978)
• So Near, So Far (1981)
• The Guernsey Man (1982)

Other Nautical Fiction

• The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower (1970)
• Manhunt (1990)

History

• Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth (1934)
• The Trade Winds, Trade in the French Wars 1793-1815 (1948)
• Samuel Waters, Lieut. RN (1949)
• Trade in the Eastern Seas (1955)
• East and West (1963)
• Britannia Rules (1977)
• Gunpowder, Treason and Plot (1978)
• A Short History of the British Navy, 1776-1816
• Portsmouth Point, The Navy in Fiction, 1793-1815 (1948)

Other Non-Fiction

• Parkinson's Law (1957)
• The Evolution of Political Thought (1958)
• The Law and the Profits (1960)
• In-Laws and Outlaws (1962)
• Left Luggage (1967)
• Mrs. Parkinson's Law (1968)
• The Law of Delay (1970)