Jamie Camplin took a double first in history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in the mid-1960s after winning a place when he was sixteen. After a period working in industry and considering a political career, he changed direction and was successively Editorial Director and Managing Director (1979-2013) at Thames & Hudson. He is the author of The Rise of the Plutocrats: Wealth and Power in Edwardian England, the historical novel 1914: The King Must Die and, most recently, Books Do Furnish a Painting (with Maria Ranauro).