Let’s take a look at some of the books by Harper Lee.
Harper Lee was an author who was best known for her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Her real name is Nelle, and she has 2 sisters and a brother. She has won many awards in her life due to her work including a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
She grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, where she attended high school. Some of her earliest writing was for the newspaper during her years at the University of Alabama. She finally wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in 1957 after moving to New York City.
She was also childhood friends with Truman Capote, who wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Harper Lee and he lived in an apartment in Mahatten together for over 40 years, and she even helped him investigate some murders, which would later become his book, In Cold Blood.
Sadly, Harper Lee passed away in 2016.
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird was the first book that Harper Lee wrote. The book was published in 1960, and won a Pulitzer Prize the following year in 1961. It has 336 pages.
To Kill a Mockingbird quickly became a classic, and is one of the most well known books in American literature. The book even inspired a film that was released in 1962, which won three Oscars.
And that’s funny because the publishers told her that she would probably only sell a couple thousand copies at most. Even Harper Lee herself wasn’t convinced that To Kill a Mockingbird would ever become what it did.
Here is Harper Lee talking about the book a few years later, “I never expected any sort of success with ‘Mockingbird’. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I’d expected.”
Harper Lee has stated that the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird were loosely based on her family, friends, and neighbors. The plot to the book was inspired by an event that happened in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in the 1930s. The people and event also inspired the irrationally racist attitudes in the book that people in the Deep South had during that time.
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the 1930s in the small, rural town of Maycomb, Alabama, and told through the eyes of a young child of six, Jean Louise Finch, better known as Scout. She lives together with her older brother, Jeremy/Jem, and her father Atticus Finch.
Atticus Finch is a lawyer who takes on a case to defend Tom Robinson, a Black man who is accused by a young white woman of a horrible crime. Despite all the hate he and his children receive, he goes forward with the defense.
The way the case is handled sparks many unpredictable events in Scout and Jem’s life, most of which are not pleasant.
To Kill a Mockingbird focuses heavily on racial injustice, but there are many other themes in the book such as Southern life, racial injustice, class injustice, gender roles, courage and compassion, loss of innocence, and many more.
You may have even read this book in high school. I know I did! It’s hard to appreciate the book at a young age when all you want to do is play outside and not do homework. If you “read” this book in high school, I highly encourage you to pick it up again. It’s definitely better the second time.
Go Set a Watchman
Go Set a Watchman was the second book that Harper Lee published. Even though the book was published in 2015, it was written sometime in the 1950s. The book has 288 pages.
Many people believe that Go Set a Watchman was a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee herself never confirmed that it was truly a sequel. However, it was later revealed that Go Set a Watchman was actually a very early version of To Kill a Mockingbird rather than a sequel.
There was a significant controversy in publishing the book. Harper Lee would have been 89 at the time it was published leading many people to believe that she was taken advantage of and pressured into allowing the book’s publication. People think the publisher just wanted to make a quick buck using Harper Lee’s name.
Go Set a Watchman is set in the future (1950s), in the same town of Maycomb, Alabama. The book features many of the same themes as To Kill a Mockingbird, most notably is race, but has many new themes including disillusionment and a father-daughter relationship.
In this book, Scout is 26 years old, and comes back home to Maycomb after living in New York City. She sees her dad as the “watchman” or moral compass for the town. Sadly, in this book Jem is no longer with us.
Oddly, and how you can really tell that it was a rough draft, there are multiple spots in the book where sentences are word for word as they are in To Kill a Mockingbird. Many of the characters in Go Set a Watchman are from To Kill a Mockingbird.
There are some differences, though. Like for some reason in this version, Atticus is a segregationist, and believes that black people in the South were not ready for civil rights. Very odd compared to To Kill a Mockingbird.
Fun fact: The original title for To Kill a Mockingbird was supposed to be Watchman.
Despite being one of the most famous authors of all time, Harper Lee really only published two books in her life, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. Although, many people would agree that her real work was only To Kill a Mockingbird. There is no doubt that Harper Lee wrote one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.