Nov 9 (Reuters) - Love letters written by Rolling Stones
frontman Mick Jagger to American singer Marsha Hunt, discussing
poetry and his personal turmoil, will hit the auction block next
month.
Hunt, with whom Jagger had his first child, Karis, told
Britain's Guardian newspaper she was selling the letters,
written in July and August 1969, because she had been unable to
pay her bills.
"I'm broke," Hunt, who lives in France, told the newspaper.
The Guardian said on Friday the 10 letters would be sold by
Sotheby's on Dec. 12.
The auction house values the letters from between 70,000 and
100,000 pounds ($111,000-$160,000).
Jagger wrote them to Hunt while filming the Tony Richardson
movie "Ned Kelly" in Australia.
They are described as showing a sensitive side of the
then-young singer, who wrote about the poetry of Emily
Dickinson, meeting author Christopher Isherwood and an
unrealized multimedia project.
Jagger's relationship with Hunt, who is African-American,
was kept under wraps until 1972.
"The sale is important," Hunt told The Guardian. "Someone, I
hope, will buy those letters as our generation is dying and with
us will go the reality of who we were and what life was."
Hunt has said she was the inspiration for the Rolling
Stones' song "Brown Sugar," which Jagger wrote while in
Australia.
The rock star also cites in the letters the disintegration
of his relationship with singer Marianne Faithful, whom he was
also dating at the time, and the death of Rolling Stones'
guitarist Brian Jones.