New Beatles Autobiography will Tell All

Thirty-five years after their heyday, the Beatles remain one of the preeminent phenomena of the modern age. More than 400 books have been written about them, both as a group and as individuals.

Those books are about to be superseded by the definitive Beatles tale: a forthcoming 360-page autobiography by Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney. The book will include 1200 photographs—many previously unpublished—and will divulge "new information about the group's drug-taking and the arguments and eventual breakup," according to an April 2 report in the London Daily Telegraph. The autobiography will sell for £50 ($80) and will be simultaneously published in Britain and the US. There are plans to translate it into "dozens of languages," including Chinese.

Global sales of the book are expected to top 20 million copies, pulling in over £1 billion ($1.6 billion) and further enriching the three multimillionaires. Yoko Ono, slain Beatle John Lennon's widow, will receive a quarter of the profits from the book, even though she did not actively participate in the project, according to the Telegraph.

The purpose of the book is "to set the record straight," according to the report, and its existence will prove to the world how closely the three former bandmates have been working in recent years. Drummer Ringo Starr once remarked that the group consisted of five members: "There was John, Paul, George, and me—and the fifth one was magic."

X