It was adapted into a movie in 1962 and received eight Oscar nominations. She submitted her first manuscript, which would eventually become “Go Set a Watchman”, eight years later to J.B. Lippincott & Co (the publisher was later acquired by Harper & Row, which eventually became HarperCollins).
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In a move that will likely remain forever controversial, Lee was encouraged to finally publish a sequel to “Mockingbird”, “Go Set A Watchman”. The timing, along with the fact that Lee was 88, suffered a stroke, and had recently lost her older sister Alice – who was reportedly very protective of Lee’s privacy – made people question whether the author actually wanted to see the book published.
Hank Conner, Lee’s nephew, said she died in her sleep at the Meadows, an assisted living facility in Monroeville, Alabama. Her passing was unexpected. In the book, an adult Scout remains fiercely independent – a proto-feminist disinterested in marriage – but her father, Atticus, speaks like an unrepentant racist.
A private life she lived and that’s the way her family hopes to honor her. They will hold a private funeral service in the coming days.
Around Christmas until about eight years ago, Harper Lee would walk into Capitol Book & News, sign hundreds of copies of her book, To Kill a Mockingbird, and purchase presents for her family.
Fifty Shades Of Grey author, E L James, tweeted: “RIP Harper Lee”, while writer Tony Parsons tweeted: “Harper Lee said more in one book than most of us manage in a lifetime”.
In 1956 friends Michael and Joy Brown gave Lee a special Christmas gift, a year of financial support so she could work full time on “To Kill a Mockingbird”.
Lee was born 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama.
It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961.
19, 2016 photo shows a letter dated May 13, 2005 written by author Harper Lee to Associated Press Reporter Allen G. Breed.
Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who was released in January from an Iranian prison after he was charged with espionage and other serious crimes, said on Twitter that “To Kill a Mockingbird” helped him get through his trial. So she suggested to Lee that she set the book much earlier, in Scout’s childhood. “It was the No. 1 favorite novel of all time in almost every poll you would read about American literature”.
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CNN’s Tod Leopold says that “there is no forgetting ‘Mockingbird, ‘” highlighting the long-lasting appeal of Lee’s book and the beloved film based off of it. “The book, and its author, offer two qualities that are often in short supply: respect and restraint”, he observes. And, in that slanted-script letter, at least I have something else to remember her by.
