


Lee had submitted to her editors in 1957 under the title “ Go Set a Watchman.” It announced plans to publish a manuscript - long thought to be lost and now resurfacing under mysterious circumstances - that Ms. Lee, her publisher, Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, dropped a bombshell.

Then, in February 2015, long after the reading public had given up on seeing anything more from Ms. On such occasions she did not speak, other than to say a brief thank you. Lee gained a reputation as a literary Garbo, a recluse whose public appearances to accept an award or an honorary degree counted as important news simply because of their rarity. Lee’s fame and fanned expectations for her next novel.īut for more than half a century a second novel failed to turn up, and Ms. The enormous popularity of the film version of the novel, released in 1962 with Gregory Peck in the starring role of Atticus Finch, a small-town Southern lawyer who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, only added to Ms. Lee said, “All I want to be is the Jane Austen of South Alabama.” Lee spoke about her literary ambition: “To describe a disappearing way of small town, middle class, southern life.” In one of her rare interviews with a Chicago radio show in 1964, Ms.

Still, the book leapt to the top of the best-seller list despite the tepid reviews. Lee’s first novel, had aged and come to embrace racial bigotry. Atticus, the beloved main character of Ms. That manuscript, a sequel - or some say prequel - to To Kill a Mockingbird, was released last year. In 2015, Harper Collins announced the discovery of “Go Set a Watchman,” a lost manuscript dating back to1957. It came, but more than fifty years later. The novel was adapted into an Oscar-winning picture that added to her celebrity and fanned expectations for her next work. Published in 1960, it sold more than 10 million copies, catapulting Ms. Her first and most beloved work tells the story of Atticus Finch, a righteous Southern lawyer who stands firm against racism in a small Alabama town, much like the one she grew up in. Harper Lee, the famously reclusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird, spent most of her life out of the spotlight. Transcript Harper Lee, 1926- 2016 Harper Lee, whose first novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” about racial injustice in a small Alabama town, sold more than 40 million copies, died at the age of 89.
