A selection of letters Linda McCartney wrote about former Beatle Paul McCartney have been unearthed.

The letters, written by Linda before she met Paul McCartney, we were discovered by Linda’s friend and former housemate Miki Antony and will be sold at auction.

“She stayed with me when she first came to London,” Antony told the Observer. “[She said] ‘Guess who I dated last night?… It was Paul McCartney, and we had this lovely evening.’

“She said Paul really liked white rabbits, and the next day she…bought a white rabbit and sent it to him. That night, she told me, he rang her up and said, ‘Thank you so much for the white rabbit, would you like to come out for dinner again?’ That’s how I knew they’d started dating. The rest is history.”

Among the letters that will be auctioned at Chiswick Auctions in London includes a cut-out article in which Linda is featured in an American gossip column, it read: “They say Beatle Paul McCartney’s latest favourite femme is Linda Eastman, a Yankee Doodle fan-mag [photographer].”

Linda then wrote on the back of the snippet: “Thought you’d get a big laugh over the enclosed clipping. Have no idea where they picked up that lie, but it just shows how truthful newspapers are.”

Another example of the letter reads: “I quit my job at Town & Country magazine to become a freelance photographer – I’m doing very well – sell mainly to teen magazines ’cause most of my subjects are rock’n’roll groups – it’s so groovy – have photographed many English groups…The Stones were my favourite, went out with Mick Jagger, he’s really a terrific person, much to my surprise.”

Antony, who first met Linda while she was studying at the University of Arizona, added: “She was a good friend for a year and a half. But then, of course, she went off into the Beatles world and that was it…She was lovely.”