# RR Merlin: Best book?



## Lucio (Aug 22, 2020)

What´s the best book about the Merlin? I'm reading Gordon A.A. Wilson's "The Merlin-The engine that won the II WW" and I'm disapointed.
Lúcio


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## nuuumannn (Aug 23, 2020)

Alec Harvey-Bailey's book through the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust will give you an insider's look at its development. Definitely worth adding to your collection if you can get a reasonably priced copy. I think its out of print now.

Amazon product

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## jetcal1 (Aug 25, 2020)

I'm going to second 

 nuuumannn
,s comments but also suggest that you visit the RRHT page and screen the Merlin books there as well.
https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media...s/about/heritage-trust-book-list-dec-2018.pdf


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## Lucio (Aug 25, 2020)

nuuumannn said:


> Alec Harvey-Bailey's book through the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust will give you an insider's look at its development. Definitely worth adding to your collection if you can get a reasonably priced copy. I think its out of print now.
> 
> Amazon product




I just found a £5.00 example in UK eBay and bought it. I will cost £8.00 to ship to Brazil but I,m still happy!
Thanks for the tip!
Lúcio


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## Lucio (Aug 25, 2020)

jetcal1 said:


> I'm going to second
> 
> nuuumannn
> ,s comments but also suggest that you visit the RRHT page and screen the Merlin books there as well.
> https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media...s/about/heritage-trust-book-list-dec-2018.pdf


I purchased "Rolls Royce and the Mustang" from RRHT one year ago. Very good and well-researched book! Will probably buy more books from them but, for now, I obtained one example of "Merlin in perspective" from UK's eBay at a very good price. 
To top it all I finally got "Vee's for victory" at a decent price. It´s in the mail.
Thanks!
Lúcio

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## nuuumannn (Aug 25, 2020)

Great score Lucio! Anything from RRHT is going to be quality. I have a range of books on various subjects, from the RR Dart, Olympus and various aircraft related topics. All good quality reference material.

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## Mark Biegert (Aug 27, 2020)

I recently read the book _Not Much of An Enginee_r by Sir Stanley Hooker, who was instrumental in the development of the Merlin's supercharger. It was a good book that provided interesting details on the development of Merlin. For those engineers out there, there is an appendix that does a nice job of covering some of the theory behind supercharging.

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## Lucio (Aug 27, 2020)

Mark Biegert said:


> I recently read the book _Not Much of An Enginee_r by Sir Stanley Hooker, who was instrumental in the development of the Merlin's supercharger. It was a good book that provided interesting details on the development of Merlin. For those engineers out there, there is an appendix that does a nice job of covering some of the theory behind supercharging.



Mark,
This book is in my list of future purchases.


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## Snowygrouch (Aug 27, 2020)

Lucio said:


> What´s the best book about the Merlin? I'm reading Gordon A.A. Wilson's "The Merlin-The engine that won the II WW" and I'm disapointed.
> Lúcio



Depends a bit if your focus is engineering or broader aspects, but the VERY short answer is: They`re all a waste of time except the RRHT books.

If it were me, I`d buy the RRHT books for the engineering, then probably add the Freeman biography by Anthony Furze to get some of the military and organizational
context. The freeman biography is really very good indeed (its not "about" the Merlin, but for background its important).

https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media...s/about/heritage-trust-book-list-dec-2018.pdf

You might struggle to get anything from RRHT at the moment what with "circumstances", so you`ll probably have to order them 2nd hand from Abe Books.

Rolls-royce Heritage Trust - AbeBooks

I omit mentioning the Hooker book as you`re already clearly aware of it. I`ve read Wilsons book and I dont think its a terrible book, I think it was just
completely mis-titled (I hope that makes some sense to you !)

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## jetcal1 (Aug 27, 2020)

Snowygrouch said:


> Depends a bit if your focus is engineering or broader aspects, but the VERY short answer is: They`re all a waste of time except the RRHT books.
> 
> If it were me, I`d buy the RRHT books for the engineering, then probably add the Freeman biography by Anthony Furze to get some of the military and organizational
> context. The freeman biography is really very good indeed (its not "about" the Merlin, but for background its important).
> ...




I have the book on Freeman. I thought while it was good, it was a bit uncritical.


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## Snowygrouch (Aug 28, 2020)

jetcal1 said:


> I have the book on Freeman. I thought while it was good, it was a bit uncritical.



I`m sure thats true in places, I think thats usually an intrinsic problem with the whole biographer/subject relationship really (except in cases where there are no surviving family members left), what do you feel in particular he missed out on saying ?

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