Morrissey letters to be auctioned Aug 26 for £22,000

A collection of previously unseen letters written by a teenage Steven Morrissey before he became the iconic frontman of The Smiths is set to be auctioned on August 26, with an estimated total value exceeding £22,000. The archive, comprising hundreds of handwritten pages, was sent between 1974 and 1979 to his Birmingham pen pal, the late poet Simon Pitt.

The correspondence, titled "Before The Smiths: The Morrissey Letters," will be offered across 65 separate lots by Dawsons Auctioneers in London. The letters chart Morrissey's development from a 14-year-old schoolboy to a 20-year-old aspiring performer, capturing his early ambitions, witty observations, and immersion in the burgeoning punk scene. In the earliest surviving letter from March 1974, Morrissey declared, "my ambition is to be a rock 'n' roll star or an actor, or a writer." Weeks later, he added with characteristic confidence, "I always said I was a genius, but nobody listened."

The archive provides a vivid, first-hand account of a pivotal cultural moment. Morrissey wrote about attending the Sex Pistols' legendary 1976 concerts at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall, an experience that led him to dramatically reverse his...