Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909-1993) was born in the north of England. In 1929 he won an Exhibition to study history at Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge. As an undergraduate, Parkinson developed an interest in naval history, which he pursued when the Pellew family gave him access to family papers at the recently established National Maritime Museum. The papers formed the basis of his first book, Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth, Admiral of the Red. In 1934, then enrolled as a graduate student at King's College London, he wrote his Ph.D. thesis on Trade and War in the Eastern Seas, 1803-1810, which was awarded the Julian Corbett Prize in Naval History for 1935.
He pursued a distinguished worldwide academic career and first became known for "Parkinson's Law," which states that work expands to fill the time allotted to it. Parkinson wrote many books concentrated on British politics and economics. His first fictional effort, a "biography" of Horatio Hornblower, met with considerable acclaim and led directly to his historic naval fiction series about Richard Delancey. It is based on the life of a Guernseyman and brings Channel Islands influence to the genre.