Writing. Publishing. Heritage.
Stories.From sea and shore.
Golden Duck is an independent publisher, specialist maritime bookseller and editorial home for maritime writing, heritage and adventure - and more.
Discover Golden Duck
Independent and Thoughtful
Golden Duck champions the best in maritime writing. As an independent publisher and specialist bookseller, we present a unique selection of nautical books, the few we publish and the many we review. Both fiction and non-fiction titles explore our relationship with rivers and the sea but, like amphibians, we live on land as well.
Carefully chosen books
Quality titles that inspire and endure.
Original writing & editorial insight
New perspectives on maritime life.
Maritime heritage & adventure
Honouring the past. Inspiring the future.
Wide-ranging & perceptive
Small team. Big love of the sea.
Francis & Julia
Francis and Julia have written many books and articles in their separate careers. Golden Duck was founded in 2005 and thus focuses primarily on their more recent writing.
Francis Wheen
Books
Francis is an outstanding biographer and cultural commentator. His prize-winning biography Karl Marx: A Life has been translated into 20 or so languages and his Marx’s Das Kapital: A Biography has admirers world wide. Francis’s first major success was his 1990 biography of Tom Driberg and his 2002 title Who Was Dr. Charlotte Bach? continues to appeal to lovers of the eccentric.
Francis’s collected journalism 1991-2001 Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies won the 2003 Orwell Prize. His two volumes of cultural commentary How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World and Strange Days Indeed: the Golden Age of Paranoia have achieved international success.
Articles
Francis wrote for Private Eye magazine for more than thirty years and was its deputy editor.
He also contributed regular book reviews to the Mail on Sunday, the Literary Review, the Spectator and the Oldie, among others.
Francis’s first job was as an office boy on the Guardian. Then, after leaving university he worked on the New Statesman magazine. He was one of the founding journalists on the Independent and has written for most national newspapers, particularly the Independent, the Observer and the Guardian where his ‘Wheen's World’ column won the What the Papers Say Columnist of the Year award in 1996.
He has also been a regular columnist for the London Evening Standard (now the Standard).
Francis retired from Private Eye in October 2022. Julia wrote about this in a blog November 2022 “Banged Out”
Julia Jones
Books
Julia has published both fiction and non-fiction titles and also titles where her input has been editorial. She is the author of the Strong Winds series, illustrated by Claudia Myatt. They also worked together to produce Please Tell Me and Please Tell Me More.
Her most recent books, published by Adlard Coles are Uncommon Courage and Stars to Steer By. As a biographer she has written The Adventures of Margery Allingham (first published by Heinemann as Margery Allingham: A Biography) and Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory: the Working Life of Herbert Allingham. Beloved Old Age and What to Do About It is (in part) an autobiographical account of her experience as a dementia carer.
Margery Allingham’s thoughts on the difficulty of balancing caring responsibility with one’s own life and work were hugely helpful.
Julia’s editorial input for Golden Duck is particularly significant in the 4th edition of The Oaken Heart and in The Cruise of Naromis: August in the Baltic 1939. Also in the de-censored edition of We Fought Them in Gunboats by Robert Hichens and From the Devil to the Deep Blue Sea by Clare Allcard.
Articles
Julia is the literary editor of Yachting Monthly. She also writes regular feature articles for the magazine as well as for other nautical and special interest publications including Marine Quarterly and Practical Boat Owner.
Her articles have appeared in the Guardian, Daily Mail, the Oldie and the Lady as well as in various health and social care journals. Previously she was a regular book reviewer for the TES.
Julia enjoys blogging. She posts on the Authors Electric blogsite on the 9th of each month, on the John’s Campaign site and also the River Deben Association’s RDA Journal
Books, series and collections
From the Golden Duck Catalogue
A curated route into Golden Duck’s recent titles, long-running series and distinctive publishing strands.
Browse the Golden Duck Shop
Explore recent Golden Duck publications, long-running series, collections and selected titles from across the shop.
Browse the shop
Strong Winds
Julia Jones’s sailing adventure series, written for older children and adults who love boats, independence and the pull of the sea.
Browse Strong Winds
The Yachtsman Volunteers
Memoirs of amateur sailors whose willingness to serve the Navy, and whose individual achievements, have often been overlooked.
Explore the series
The Lionesses of the Sea
A series of remarkable sea stories and memoirs, beginning with Nicolette Milnes Walker and now spanning five titles.
Explore Lionesses
Claudia Myatt
Books and illustration from Claudia Myatt, whose drawings are woven through several Golden Duck projects and maritime titles.
Explore Claudia’s books
Sailing
The company name is an amalgamation of Francis and Julia’s boats - Goldenray and Peter Duck.
Explore sailing titles
Dementia
Golden Duck has published two activity books in support of John’s Campaign: Please Tell Me and Please Tell Me More.
Explore dementia titles
The Allinghams
Golden Duck’s first publication was a paperback edition of The Adventures of Margery Allingham, Julia’s 1991 biography of the Essex detective novelist.
Explore Allingham titlesPublishing
Publishing at Golden Duck
Golden Duck has published more than 30 paperbacks, with many also available as e-books.