Letters from pre-Smiths Morrissey to go to auction
Letters penned by Morrissey between the ages of 14 and 20, before he founded The Smiths, are set to go to auction next month.
There are gold nuggets of Morrissey’s self-aggrandising tone scattered throughout the previously unseen handwritten letters, including, “I always said I was a genius, but nobody listened.”
Another letter contains the prophetic quotation, “My ambition is to be a rock ‘n’ roll star or an actor, or a writer”.
Morrissey is addressing his Birmingham pen friend, Simon Pitt, who would eventually go on to become the city’s poet laureate.
Written between 1974 and 1979, the letters allow a look at a divisive icon at a formative time in his life; as such, they are expected to pull in a combined £22,000 when they go up for sale in London.
There are other splashes of interesting information, such as the biting critique Morrissey writes after seeing The Sex Pistols at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976.
He writes, “As for the Pistols… they were pathetic. I take back all that I’ve said about the Pistols… They are just plain bad. Period.”
Outside of the music world, the letters also capture pertinent political commentary from the vocalist.
In one of the later letters, following Margaret Thatcher’s election as prime minister in 1979, the soon-to-be-star remarks, “Did you vote? Labour, I hope? God knows what tortures that miserable Thatcher has prepared for us woikin’ class folk. I dread to fink.”
The comedic quality of his voice struck a chord with Peter Mason, auctioneer and senior valuer at Dawsons, who shared of the findings: “What struck me most was just how funny Morrissey is.”
He added, “Alongside the wit and unmistakable literary voice that would later become synonymous with Morrissey, the correspondence also captures Britain at a fascinating moment in its cultural history.”
The interesting artefacts are being offered as separate lots in Before The Smiths: The Morrissey Letters, which will be held at Dawsons Auctioneers on August 26th.
Elsewhere, Morrissey has been in the headlines for penning a bold open letter to Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, to ban bullfighting, deeming it a “hideous spectacle“.
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