Newly-discovered letter by Paul McCartney to be auctioned

A newly-discovered letter written by Sir Paul McCartney on 12 August 1960 will be going under the hammer at Christie's next month.

The letter invites an unknown drummer to audition for The Beatles, one of the first occasions of the band referring to themselves as the famed fivesome.

It was recently found folded up inside a book at a boot sale in Liverpool by a collector and it reveals new details about the early history of the group.

The letter is expected to sell for between £7,000 and £9,000. It is not known who the drummer was or if the audition took place.

Three days after the letter was written, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best went to Hamburg, where they toured for almost two months.

Director of popular culture at Christie's Neil Roberts said: "It is exciting to be able to offer to market a newly discovered important item of Beatles memorabilia, on behalf of an individual who was fortunate enough to find it folded up in a book at a car boot sale."

The band released their first musical demo in 1963, which was followed by a performance at the Cavern Club which attracted the manager Brian Epstein, who would catapult the group to stardom.