But as the deadline for submitting the manuscript approached, Assange was "totally shocked" at the prospect of his own story being told, describing men who reveal their private lives in books as "weak" and people who write about their family as "prostitutes", O'Hagan revealed.

In the essay, O'Hagan describes Assange as passionate, funny, lazy, courageous, vain, paranoid, moral and manipulative.

He reveals how Assange sent Sarah Harrison, described by O'Hagan as Assange's secretary and girlfriend at the time, to check for assassins in bushes on his behalf during a trip to the local police station.

O'Hagan also describes one car journey in which Assange demanded the writer pull off a small country road to avoid a white Mondeo that he was convinced was tailing them, but which turned out to be a taxi dropping a child off from school.

Assange tried to convince O'Hagan to accompany him to the Hay Festival by helicopter, despite the book being unfinished and unlikely to ever be completed, said the ghostwriter.

"He wanted me to see him on the helicopter and he wanted me to assist him in living out that version of himself," O'Hagan said.

"The fact he was going to a book festival to talk about a book we both knew he would never produce was immaterial: he was flying in from Neverland with his own personal J.M. Barrie.

He also reveals details about Assanges unusual personal habits such as his insistence on eating everything with his hands including baked potatoes and jam pudding.

Frustrated by Assanges reluctance, Canongate published a version of O'Hagan's manuscript as "Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Biography" in September 2011 without the Australian's consent, in an attempt to recoup some of their investment.

Despite Assange telling O'Hagan he had covertly encouraged sales and tweeted links to its Amazon page, the book was a spectacular flop, selling fewer than 700 copies in its first week.

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Julian Assange 'couldn't bear to reveal his own secrets', says ghostwriter