Auction introduction: In this sale Sotheby’s celebrates the world’s greatest pop group by offering a compelling selection that traces The Beatles from schooldays to global superstardom. The Beatles’s early years are represented in items ranging from a teachers’ list of John Lennon’s school misdemeanours, to handbills advertising some of their early concerts in the Liverpool area, to a belt worn by Lennon in stage in Hamburg. A rare signed first pressing of their first single, ‘Love Me Do’ is the first amongst several attractive signed items – photographs, programmes – many of which were inscribed at key moments in the band’s history. There also more personal items in the sale, notably a pair of John Lennon’s familiar round glasses, possibly the first pair he ever owned, as well as artworks by Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison. Fine art photographs and posters provide a fine range of visually compelling representations of The Beatles’s fascinating and ever-changing global public image. A different view of the band is granted by a number of items relating to the “fifth Beatle”, manager Brian Epstein, include his Cartier watch, his address book, and several others, whilst various business documents trace yet another aspect of the band’s development and history. The sale concludes with several lots dating from after the band’s dissolution, notably a guitar with a fascinating history that was inscribed by Lennon in the mid-70s, and ends with a contemporary artwork that looks back with a warmth – and perhaps, today especially, a touch of envy – at The Beatles’s extraordinary world, suffused with love, music, and optimism.