Hunter Davies Archives - The Beatles Bookstore

Written by the author of the official Beatles biography, Hunter Davies. Published in 2009 by Quercus. Not a very well-known book in the USA!

This book by Hunter Davies demonstrates his own collecting proclivities and tendencies including, stamps, football memorabilia, comics, postcards, books, autographs and of course, the Beatles!

Hunter deals with the obsession and the joys and the pitfalls of being a collector! A very enjoyable book, indeed!

The cover of the book that Hunter wrote about his own collecting interests:

Confessions of a Collector by Hunter Davies

Back Cover of the book:

A brief excerpt of this wonderful book:

A funny story at the British Museum

The story at the end of this page certainly rings true. When I first visited the British Museum in the 1980s, I remember entering the document room seeing a copy of the Magna Carta, the Gutenberg Bible and many other very historical documents. There was only a smattering of people around these documents, much to my amazement!

I saw a large collection of people at a table at the back of the room and my curiosity forced me to take a look. I embarrassed myself by letting out a loud chuckle as the large crowd gathered there was looking at hand-written Beatles lyrics donated to the museum by Hunter Davies! That funny occurrence made my day and confirmed my belief in the timeless status that the Beatles had attained in world culture!

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The Leather-bound Beatles Lyrics Hunter Davies Book-Fact or Fiction?

I learned a lesson the hard way with this title. It was advertised on Ebay as a leather-bound prototype of only two copies that were made by the publishers. The volume was also signed by the author. According to the seller he approached Hunter at the hotel he was staying at for a Beatles event and he asked him to sign the book there. I paid a lot of money for this book and then I did what I should have before I purchased it. I wrote to our good friend, author David Bedford, to ask Hunter Davies about this limited-edition book. David obliged my request and Hunter got back to him saying to the best of his knowledge, no leather-bound limited-edition versions of the book were ever issued. The publishers subsequently verified that notion.

Refund?

I could have returned the book to the seller demanding a full refund, but I decided not to for what you may interpret as an odd reason. The book is indeed leather-bound, and it is signed by Hunter as I have several of his signatures. What the sellers or people that they got the book from did, was to take the contents of the regular hardback edition of the book and bind it in a leather casing. Even though what was done was not a legitimate enterprise, it gave me the only leather-bound edition of the book in the world which I found to be very intriguing and prompted my keeping it. However, I am not going to throw caution to the wind in the future, as this will not happen to me again!