Douglas Botting is a writer and biographer whose previous books reflect his interest in travel, exploration and wild places. After reading English at Oxford, he accompanied scientific and filming expeditions to Southern Arabia, the Sahara, the Amazon, Mato Grosso and Arctic Siberia. He became a full-time writer with the publication of his highly-praised biography of the German explorer-naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (Humboldt and the Cosmos), and subsequently wrote two further biographies – Hitler’s Last General (with Ian Sayer) and the life of otter-man Gavin Maxwell, hailed by Sir David Attenborough as ‘wonderfully written and very penetrating and understanding – an extraordinary story’.