The Beatles: The Authorized Biography

1968, first edition, from McGraw-Hill
Hunter Davies
The Beatles: The Authorized Biography
Original price unknown, purchase price $8.95
Good condition except for worn dustjacket
B-

In a way, it's remarkable that I got a first edition for so cheap, some 20 years ago.  I'd heard of the book in other books about the Beatles, so I must've been quite pleased by my find.  Davies apparently later did updated editions, but there's something about capturing the Beatles at that time, just after Magical Mystery Tour, before The White Album.  That said, it's almost painful how much is left out, and not just because it's the only "authorized biography" ever written on the group.  Not just their music yet to come, including my favorite of their albums, Abbey Road, but some of what was going on at the time that either was not on Davies's radar, or he wasn't able to write about for whatever reason.  He mentions the sex and drugs, but tones them down.  (Especially compared to Peter Brown's The Love You Make, which I'll discuss under 1983.)

John had already met Yoko in '66, and they'd get together the same year this book was released, which makes it harder to read about John and Cynthia's married life.  Also, the coy references to Brian Epstein as a "gay bachelor" (in the sense of happy) are hard to take, when Brian was very unhappy, partly due to being closeted.  (He also felt aimless after the Beatles stopped touring.)  There's a mention of John's fist-fight with someone after being called queer, but Davies doesn't connect this with the trip to Spain John took with Brian.

Paul's relationship with Jane Asher is discussed, but of course there's no mention of Linda, although they met a few months after John met Yoko.  Surprisingly, there's quite a bit about the Beatles' "parents" (including Ringo's stepfather and John's Aunt Mimi), and it's sweet to think of Mrs. Harrison answering fan letters personally.

The book could've used better editing in the sense that there are a couple year screw-ups, as when George is correctly said to have been born in '43, but then with a birthyear of '44 a few pages later.  Also, Davies over-identifies people, repeatedly saying, for instance, that Michael McCartney (McGear) is Paul's brother.

Still, the book does its best to capture a frantic moment in time.  Even that worn dustjacket tries to sum up how the Fab Four were, as some of them put it, parts of one whole.  The cover shows a composite made up of quarters of each bearded Beatle's face.  And on the back, the Edwardian-suited lads are faceless, with too large paper-doll-like faces of them as littler lads of 9 or so, hovering above.  It doesn't all fit together, but the pieces are interesting.

Davies is still best known for this book, despite writing many others.  I actually know a bit more of his long-time wife Margaret Forster, since she wrote Georgy Girl, as well as a 1988 Elizabeth Barrett Browning biography which I own.