In 1935, he published "Finale. Self-portrait of Nadja Malacrida", this included a memoir of Nadja by Cecil Roberts, a close friend of the couple. The book was a tribute to his late wife and contained letters the two had sent each other in the month before her death. In the book he provided some details about his life prior to his marriage. He appears to have been an Italian army pilot during the First World War and says "Did I know Ljubljana, Leibach as it was known in the old days? I said I did, though I had never actually been there; but it was one of my flying objectives during the war, when I had a spell of bombing in the old Caproni." After the war he was a newspaper correspondent. In the 18 months between first meeting Nadja and their engagement he was abroad a great deal: "Northcliffe, my Lord and Master, packed me off to Helsingfors, where I was to collect some news from Kronstadt, and chat with as many Russian princesses as I could possibly bag, in the picturesquee camouflage of the latest fugitives from Soviet Russia. Peasant dress and ropes of pearls do you remember? After that I actually managed to get into Russia, and then went on to Poland, and then, after three days in London, on again somewhere in the Balkans. Then back to Poland once more." After his return to London and second meeting with Nadja (an afternoon at Kew) he was obliged to travel again: "the next day I left for America, where I had to attend the Washington Conference, with a spectacular and grossly overpaid job for some American newspaper combine."