Gary Hicks is a former political reporter who later 'spun' for global corporations and the UK government,travelling worldwide with prime ministers from Harold Wilson to Margaret Thatcher. His first book 'Fate's Bookie: How the Lottery Shaped the World' was published by The History Press in 2009. He completed 'Girl in a Green Gown: the History and Mystery of the Arnolfini Portrait' which his late wife, the Cambridge art historian Carola Hicks, has been writing at the time of her death in 2010. Chatto & Windus published this account of Jan van Eyck's enigmatic double portrait in London's National Gallery, and its owners, in September 2011. Gary's latest book 'The First Adman' will be published by Victorian Secrets in November 2012. This is the untold story of how modern advertising was pioneered 200 years ago by the Regency entrepreneur, dodgy MP and lottery contractor Tom Bish. Among his many strokes of genius in creating early ad campaigns was the hiring of essayist Charles Lamb as a copywriter and the great George Cruikshank as an illustrator.