The Beatles are the most successful entity in the history of the entertainment business ever! Fact! And it all didn't happen by accident.

Four working-class lads met up in and around Liverpool towards the end of the 1950s. They spent several years playing around Liverpool and in Hamburg fine tuning their band, performance and song writing before meeting up with Liverpool entrepreneur Brian Epstein and releasing their first album, Please Please Me, forty years ago today (publication day 23 March 2003).

During the following ten years they broke every performance and sales record in the book, most notably in May 1964 each and every one of the top five singles in the American Billboard chart was theirs. On top of which they recorded, arguably, three of the best contemporary albums ever released.

The Beatles were the soundtrack to the sixties. This Pocket Essential discusses how they met and, using the songs and records as signposts, takes you on a journey through their colourful, historic and celebrated career.