[5] The book's subsequent European release, on 17 October 2013, caused controversy as it was published under the Penguin Classics imprint, normally reserved for highly esteemed deceased authors.

[6][7][8] On the day of the book's publication, Morrissey undertook a signing session in Gothenburg, with some fans queuing up to 30 hours in advance.

He writes extensively about the television programmes, literature and music that influenced him, devoting many pages to the New York Dolls, whom he persuaded to reform in the early 2000s.

The book includes a number of descriptions of people Morrissey has worked with which his biographer Tony Fletcher calls "character assassinations".

[19] John Harris wrote in The Guardian website, "for its first 150 pages, Autobiography comes close to being a triumph", but focuses unduly on Morrissey's legal battles with Mike Joyce; "the verbiage dedicated to this stuff threatens to eclipse what he has to say about every other aspect of his career".

[21] Literary critic Terry Eagleton, in The Guardian itself, wrote: "There is a relish and energy about its prose that undercuts his misanthropy.