Why we are publishing Julian Assange's (unauthorised) autobiography | Nick Davies

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota  Julian Assange – the Unauthorised Autobiography 'is a compelling portrait of one of the most mercurial figures alive today'. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
Late last year Canongate, the publishing house I work for, signed Julian Assange's autobiography to huge media attention. Julian had just been released from Wandsworth prison and wanted to find a publisher for his book. And why not? Everyone else was at it. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the disillusioned former WikiLeaks spokesperson, was busy spinning his memoir. The Guardian and the New York Times were eager to put their respective versions of events across. Here was Julian's chance to raise some much-needed money for WikiLeaks and to set his critics straight. And Canongate Books seemed like the perfect fit: a small, independent publishing house that has always been happy to take a risk and admired what Julian and WikiLeaks had achieved.
The first three months couldn't have gone much better. Canongate's managing director, Jamie Byng, and I travelled up to Norfolk to see Julian in early January. Our first priority was to find a ghostwriter to work on the project. Julian was very clear about what he wanted: "I have all the facts. Find me a novelist who can turn those facts into stories."
We struck it lucky with the writer we found: an award-winning novelist who was equally comfortable writing serious, hard-hitting reportage. He was a strong character too. Somebody who could put his hand up and tell Julian when he was talking shit or veering off subject. It was a brilliant combination and the two men worked late into the night, most nights, drinking whisky in the icy-cold drawing room at Ellingham Hall through January, February and March.
At the same time, Canongate – on Julian's behalf – struck rights deals with 38 of the best publishing houses around the world. This really would be a global book launch, which seemed fitting for the founder of WikiLeaks and his international fanbase. What could possibly go wrong?
Julian's ghostwriter delivered a brilliant first draft of the book, bang on schedule, at the end of March. We read it and loved it. Julian didn't. He didn't love it. We're not even sure how much he actually read. It was an extraordinary reaction to a manuscript he should have been grateful for and immensely proud of.
What followed was a series of broken promises. We set Julian free to work on the manuscript himself. He had six weeks to edit and rewrite. On the day he was supposed to return it to us, we heard that he'd lost all of his work. It was buried in one of his many laptops and he couldn't find it (dogs and homework came to mind). Then he told us he wanted to cancel his contract. But he couldn't repay his advance. He had already signed it over to his lawyers to cover his escalating legal bills.
There have been countless other twists and turns to this extraordinary story. But the reason we've decided to publish the book – against Julian's will, but with clear forewarning – is this: with no prospect of ever seeing Julian's advance repaid to us, and with little chance of convincing Julian to engage with that first draft, we had only one sensible option – to publish the draft that we felt was so strong and which conformed so closely to the original brief.
There is a financial imperative, of course. We hope that in publishing the book we will recover some of our losses. But we are also immensely proud of the book itself. It is a compelling portrait of one of the most mercurial figures alive today.
As for that much commented-upon subtitle, The Unauthorised Autobiography, it is definitely a publishing first. And given we're talking about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks there is, of course, a sweet irony to it too.
• Nick Davies, not to be confused with the Guardian reporter Nick Davies, is publishing director at Canongate

The 'unauthorised autobiography' of Julian Assange seeks to portray him as simply the victim of women scorned | Alexander Chancellor

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
In Julian Assange's "unauthorised autobiography", which was published yesterday against his wishes, the world's most famous computer hacker goes into lurid detail about the encounters that led the Swedish authorities to seek his extradition from Britain to face charges of rape. There were two women involved – woman "A" and woman "W" – with each of whom he says he had casual, consensual sex.
At the time of his visit to Sweden in the summer of last year Assange believed that the US was seeking to prosecute or otherwise punish him for publishing thousands of state secrets on his WikiLeaks website, and he says he was then under such stress that he welcomed the attentions "of these smiling and affectionate women". He says he had sex "several times" one night with woman "A", a political activist, who next day "seemed totally happy, laughing, and drinking with me and my friends and her friends until late". And similarly with woman "W", whom he had met at a press conference, he had enjoyed a friendly breakfast and a bicycle ride before taking his leave of her with a goodbye kiss. "I may be a chauvinist pig of some sort," he says, "but I am no rapist." So why, if so, did these women later go to the police and accuse him of rape?
Assange toys with the idea that he could have been a victim of an American-sponsored honeytrap, but he seems to veer towards the conclusion that it was simply a case of revenge for his own boorish behaviour. Not only did he fail to keep up with woman "A", but he was even more offhand with woman "W", who had asked him to telephone her from a train he boarded after they had kissed goodbye. "I didn't do that, and it has already turned out to be the most expensive call I didn't make," he says. So, barring the possibility that he is in fact guilty as charged, it seems that William Congreve was right when he wrote in The Mourning Bride, his play of 1697: "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
It has been Congreve's week, for his wisdom seems to apply equally to the troubles afflicting Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat energy secretary. Last year Huhne suddenly left his wife Vicky Pryce for another woman after 26 years of marriage, and since then she has done all she can to make his life uncomfortable. Last May she claimed that he had tried to get her to take speeding points on his behalf, which would have been a criminal offence, and just lately she has been up at the Lib Dem conference in Birmingham haunting him and his mistress, Carina Trimingham.
Huhne told party activists at a fringe meeting that he was "enormously regretful" for what he had done to Pryce, that he understood her stress, and that he had asked her to forgive him. But she refused to do that, and this week she responded to his attempt at contrition with a very angry statement: "I am surprised that my ex-husband considers it appropriate to talk at a public meeting about the very private aspects of our family life. I consider that what he said is a serious intrusion into mine and our family's private life."
I feel rather sorry for the Essex police and for the Crown Prosecution Service that it is against this background of personal acrimony that they have had to conduct their investigation into the allegation that Huhne was willing to lie about who was driving his car when it was found to be speeding.
This may partly explain why it has taken such a long time for them to decide whether or not to prosecute him. It is four months now since Pryce first made her allegation, and you might think this would be more than enough time for the police to crack such a case. But if their decision hangs on nothing more than which of these miserable former spouses to believe, it is understandable that they are slow to reach it. And if, as Huhne believes, the case against him will shortly be dropped, this may be seen as yet another vindication for Congreve.
It is salutary to be reminded how little influence this column has. How often have I begged Kate Winslet to "calm down, dear" and accept her acting awards with dignity, or at least in a manner befitting her chosen image as the down-to-earth girl-next-door from Reading? Have I not urged her to live up to the standards for which British actors were once praised by Gil Cates, the 14-times producer of the Academy Awards show, who said that he loved English Oscar winners because "their speeches are so classy and precise"?
But Winslet has taken no notice. Unconcerned by the derision caused by her sobbing, incoherent utterances at the Golden Globe Awards a couple of years ago, she was no better this week when she won the Best Actress prize at the Emmy television awards in Los Angeles. "Oh look, I really did win it," she spluttered. "Oh gosh! OK. Thank you so much." Asked by a reporter afterwards to explain her breathless ramble, she replied: "It just comes out the way it comes out. There's not a huge amount you can do about it." Is that not a strange thing for a professional actor to say?