Rick Gekoski

Was Philip Larkin’s secretary right to shred his diaries, shortly before his death? Or Byron’s executors to burn his Memoirs? Was Max Brod right to reject Kafka’s final instruction to burn all of his unpublished manuscripts? Rick reveals to Andy Miller the stories behind missing works of art and literature. Some stolen (the Mona Lisa), some destroyed, some lost before they existed, (the career of Charles Rennie Mackintosh). Collectively they reveal what art means to us.

Rick Gekoski - described by Tatler as “think Bill Bryson, only on books” – is a rare book dealer, writer, and broadcaster. He has founded two private presses which issue finely printed editions of leading contemporary novelists and poets. In 2005 he was one of the judges for the Man Booker Prize, and was then Chair of the judges for the Man Booker International Prize 2011.