On Sale: Jun 16, 2026
Page Count: 400 pages
Publisher: Da Capo
ISBN-13: 9780306837234

$32.50

$42.00 CAD

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Hardcover $32.50 $42.00 CAD
ebook $16.99 $21.99 CAD
Audiobook Download (Unabridged) $31.99
Trade Paperback (Large Print) $34.50 $45.50 CAD

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The definitive, comprehensive biography of Brian Epstein—the man who built the Beatles.

There will never be another pop manager like Brian Epstein, the young record-retailer from Liverpool behind the 20th century’s greatest romance. Having achieved his much-derided aim of making the Beatles “bigger than Elvis,” Brian went on to make them bigger than any earthly instrument could measure. Only a handful of years older, he nonetheless referred them as “the Boys,” protecting and pampering them like the children he could never hope to have.

Due to his homosexuality—and possibly his Jewishness—Brian received no public honor (or even thanks) for this incalculable contribution to Britain’s exports, let alone the national morale. He may not have been the best dealmaker for the Beatles, but in his hands, their guiding principles were always good taste, niceness to their fans, and value for money. Yet his only tangible memorials are a blue plaque marking his former office in London’s theatreland and a modest bronze statue near the site of his family’s electrical goods store in Liverpool.

Mr. Moonlight draws on a cache of never-before-heard audio interviews to tell the story of this hugely complex, self-contradictory, and ultimately tragic character. From his Pre-Beatles years—the eight different expensive private schools at which he failed to shine, his problematic career as an army National Serviceman, his vague ambitions to be a couturier—through his management of the Beatles, where he turned a quartet of unruly young musicians in cracked black leather into a worldwide religion, up to his supposedly “incautious” overdoses in 1967 at aged 32, and the calamity that followed. As John Lennon said upon hearing the news, “Then we’re fucked!”—and they were.

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Philip Norman was born in London and brought up on the Isle of Wight. He joined the Sunday Times at the age of twenty-two, soon gaining a reputation as Atticus columnist and for his profiles of figures as diverse as Elizabeth Taylor, P. G. Wodehouse, Little Richard and Colonel Gaddafi. In 1981 he published SHOUT!, a ground-breaking biography of the Beatles that was a bestseller in both Britain and the US. He has also written the definitive lives of Sir Elton John, Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.

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Philip Norman

About the Author

Philip Norman was born in London and brought up on the Isle of Wight. He joined the Sunday Times at the age of twenty-two, soon gaining a reputation as Atticus columnist and for his profiles of figures as diverse as Elizabeth Taylor, P. G. Wodehouse, Little Richard and Colonel Gaddafi. In 1981 he published SHOUT!, a ground-breaking biography of the Beatles that was a bestseller in both Britain and the US. He has also written the definitive lives of Sir Elton John, Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.

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