In April this year, I published a book about the antiques dealer and so-called ‘king of Chelsea’ Christopher Gibbs. In his heyday he had flings with Rudolf Nureyev and Robert Mapplethorpe, hung out with William Burroughs, let Bruce Chatwin lodge in his attic and transformed the Rolling Stones’ fortunes by introducing them to Rupert Loewenstein, who would become the band’s manager. He was also my husband’s uncle. When I first met him twenty years ago, he was no longer a man about town. He spent much of the year at his house in Tangier, wafting around the garden in a caftan. Yet he remained a person of fabulous style, scholarship and charm.

After he died in 2018, I helped his sister go through his things and came across forgotten files of his articles, letters and photographs spanning six decades. Determined to collect all the material together in a sort of coffee-table book so that his life and work would be preserved for posterity, I approached a couple of established publishers. They told me that Christopher was a niche figure and any book about him would be unlikely to make its costs back. But one put me in touch with a