Twenty three years ago, Vivian Stanshall tragically died in a fire, trapped in a north London flat. Drunk, he slept through his own death. Vivian was the ineffable, unflappable, elegant, and irreverently funny frontman and songwriter for the Bonzo Dog Dada Band, a group of art students who created a band unlike any other. They are still adored by thousands long after their short time in the sun was knocked on the head by Vivian himself.

"We were art students. We were Dada. We were making fun of the worst excesses of rock 'n roll. One day I looked around to discover we'd become what we were parodying," he once reflected.

Written by his wife of 18 years, herself an artist, this is a behind-the-scenes, beneath-the-sheets, under-the-bed tale of an actual genius—few who admired him would disagree. In many ways, this is Vivian through his own private words gleaned from his personal journals.

The book is also full of up-close and revealing portraits of legends: Keith Moon, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, John Peel, Joe Cocker, and so many more. But even more than all that, it’s an ART BOOK: crammed full of Vivian’s paintings, sketches, unpublished family photos, letters, and poems.

Vivian Stanshall was the last of the true Bohemians. This is also a tale of Dada, a mad, sad, glad voyage through life on a grand scale made by one of England’s greatest treasures: the genius who was Vivian Stanshall.