In 1971, David Ogilvy, guiding light of the legendary Manhattan advertising firm Ogilvy + Mather and often called the greatest living 'Ad Man', wrote the following memo to a colleague, entitled 'Will anyone hire this man?'

'He is 38, and unemployed. He dropped out of college. He has been a cook, a salesman, a diplomatist and a farmer. He knows nothing about marketing, and has never written any copy. He professes to be interested in advertising.'

It was the story of his own life before he got his own break in the industry, with a company then called Mather + Crowther. First collected by his devoted family and colleagues as a 75th birthday present, The Unpublished David Ogilvy collects a career's worth of public and private communications - memos, letters, speeches, notes and interviews, into a single volume which fizzes with energy and freshness nearly 25 years after it was first published.