Mick Jagger. What a rock and roll rebel that fella was back in the 60s, doing his sex talk all over his Rolling Stones band mates' filthy guitar licks, putting his really long tongue out at regular intervals, wearing genitalia-enhancing tight jeans. Truly, he was a sexual predator.

Or was he? Love letters that have been dug out and put into the public domain suggest that the once hirsute rocker had a tender, caring side away from his public persona. According to The Guardian, letters sent to Australia to Marsha Hunt, his lover, first child's mother and the inspiration for Jagger's controversial song ‘Brown Sugar’ show the star’s softer personality. Indeed, he opened up a lot in the letters, revealing his love for the literature he was reading at the time: "toying" through Nijinsky's diaries, reading about Navajo Indians, enjoying the poems of Emily "Dix" (Dickinson).

10 of the letters are being sold at Sotherby’s auction house on December 12th and carry an estimate of minimum $110,000. But why would the letters’ recipient be selling them? "I'm broke” was the blunt answer from Hunt. She added: "Anyone who has the impression that I have money knows nothing about me. I had friends who came to visit from Pennsylvania and there was no electricity in the house because the bill had been too high, I was kind of grooving it with a wood burning stove. One friend said, 'surely you've got something you could sell?'"