He continued posing for artists for three short books by the time he came to write "The Naked Civil Servant" at the urging of his agent, Donald Carroll. Crisp wanted to call it "I Reign in Hell", a reference to "Paradise Lost" ("Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven"). Still, Carroll insisted on "The Naked Civil Servant", an insistence that later gave him pause when he offered the manuscript to Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape on the same day that Desmond Morris delivered "The Naked Ape". The book was published in 1968 to generally good reviews. Subsequently, Crisp was approached by the documentary-maker Denis Mitchell to be the subject of a short film in 1971, in which he discussed his life and lifestyle.