John Lennon’s letter to his first wife where he criticizes Paul McCartney: it’s expected to fetch over $50,000 at auction

You’ll need upwards of $50,000 if you want to own a piece of The Beatles’ early messiness – and a handwritten jab at Paul McCartney from John Lennon himself.

John Lennon’s 1962 letter to Cynthia Powell

Christie’s is auctioning a previously unpublished, four-page letter Lennon wrote to his future wife Cynthia Powell in April 1962, during a rough and rowdy residency in Hamburg, Germany. Back then, the Beatles were nobodies, Pete Best was still their drummer, and Stuart Sutcliffe had just died. Lennon was 21, exhausted, lovesick... and somewhat horny! Maybe the latter aspect explains some of the spelling.

In the letter, written over six days, Lennon toggles between lustful declarations (“I love love love you… with the Sunday papers and chocies and a throbber!”) and irritation about his bandmates – notably a dig at McCartney, whom he accuses of snoring in the bunk above: “Shurrup Mcarntey,” he writes, with a Scouse-slurred version of ‘shut up!’

He also complains about Cynthia potentially moving in with McCartney’s then-girlfriend, Dot Rhone. “Imagine Paul coming all the time… especially when I wasn’t there,” Lennon wrote, maintaining the smutty tone.

How much will Lennon love letter fetch?

Auction house experts call the letter “poignant,” partly because of its raw mix of grief (Lennon opens with a note on Sutcliffe’s death), lust, and deeply unfiltered Beatles banter, the kind sometimes scrubbed from documentaries. Cynthia cut two chunks from it herself, likely to hide the raunchiest bits. How much would that have sold for?

The letter goes under the hammer on July 9 in London, with an estimated value of up to £40,000, which is about $54,000. Some wonder if it will raise as much as that penned by McCartney, which sold for $55,412 almost a decade ago.

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