My first published writings were short articles for the wargame press in the 1960s - especially the inspirational Donald Featherstone's 'Wargamer's Newsletter' - and I suspect that has affected my writing style ever since. My use of phraseology seems to please neither academics nor Americans, both of whom apparently prefer a straight humourless progression from A to Z, without the sort of discursive chit-chat (including light irony) that I believe appeals to the (British) amateur reader. In 1976 my first (very short) published book - on French Artillery, 1800-15 - was also aimed at the hobbyist, as have been my wargame books.
In 1981, however, I was fortunate to meet the publisher Tony Bird. He finally allowed me to break into a rather wider market with 'Forward Into Battle', which was the first of my full length books on non-wargame subjects. It really laid out the agenda for most of my subsequent studies, and highlighted some of the gaps in my knowledge that needed filling, especially the American Civil and Great wars.
By 1987 when my major Civil War book first appeared, Bird had passed it on to Crowood Press, and they in turn distributed it in USA through Yale University Press. It was with Robert Baldock of Yale UP that I progressed to my major Western Front book in 1994, and with him that I also eventually hope to produce a companion volume, on the desert war of 1940-43.
While I was working with Bird, Crowood and Yale I was simultaneously placing different types of work - mainly illustrated books and wargame books - with other publishers. The first was 'French Artillery 1800-15' but in 1984 I was lucky enough to meet the illustrator Peter Dennis, who told me how to publish for myself. We became partners in 'Fieldbooks' , and in the 1990s I went on to publish entirely on my own under the 'Paddy Griffith Associates' imprint. The first success of the latter was a new edition of Colonel Twemlow's 'The Battle of Blore Heath, 1459' - a subject in which I had become involved through the activities of the Battlefields Trust.
If you want to buy any books published by 'Fieldbooks' or 'Paddy Griffith Associates', you can order them through me - see details later in this website. The books published by other publishers will have to be ordered in the normal way through them or through your bookshop. I'm afraid my own information about their price and whether or not they are in print is limited (the author is the last to hear, when a book gets remaindered).
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