{"id":710721,"date":"2026-07-25T15:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T15:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710721\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T15:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T15:59:08","slug":"letters-written-by-young-pre-smiths-morrissey-up-for-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710721\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters written by young pre-Smiths Morrissey up for auction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Peter Mason, auctioneer and senior valuer at Dawsons, said: &#8220;What struck me most was just how funny Morrissey is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Running through almost every letter is a wonderful sense of humour and genuine warmth that makes him an incredibly endearing character.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Through his observations on punk, music, politics and everyday life, the letters offer a vivid snapshot of the changing British music scene and political landscape during the 1970s while documenting the emergence of a remarkable young talent long before the rest of the world knew his name.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With The Smiths, who were completed by Marr, bass player Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce, Morrissey was one of the pioneers of British indie rock in the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They achieved three UK top 10 singles, and were best known for songs such as This Charming Man, Heaven Knows I&#8217;m Miserable Now, and How Soon Is Now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter Mason, auctioneer and senior valuer at Dawsons, said: &#8220;What struck me most was just how funny Morrissey&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-710721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}