Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) was an American novelist best known for her 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird. It won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Lee published only two books, yet she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for her contribution to literature.[1] She also received numerous honorary degrees, though she declined to speak on those occasions. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966).[2] Capote was the basis for the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.[3]

Harper Lee
Portrait from the first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) (photo by Truman Capote)
BornNelle Harper Lee
(1926-04-28)April 28, 1926
Monroeville, Alabama, U.S.
DiedFebruary 19, 2016(2016-02-19) (aged 89)
Monroeville, Alabama, U.S.
Pen nameHarper Lee
OccupationNovelist
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of Alabama
Period1960–2016
GenreLiterature, fiction
Literary movementSouthern Gothic
Notable worksTo Kill a Mockingbird
Go Set a Watchman
Signature

The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936 when she was 10. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children. It was inspired by racist attitudes in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. She also wrote the novel Go Set a Watchman in the mid-1950s and published it in July 2015 as a sequel to Mockingbird, but it was later confirmed to be merely her first draft of Mockingbird.[4][5][6]

Early life

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama [7] where she grew up as the youngest of four children of Frances Cunningham (Finch) and Amasa Coleman Lee.[8] Her parents chose her middle name, Harper, to honor pediatrician Dr. William W. Harper, of Selma, who saved the life of her sister Louise.[9] Her first name, Nelle, was her grandmother's name spelled backwards and the name she used;[10] Harper Lee being primarily her pen name.[10] Lee's mother was a homemaker; her father, a former newspaper editor, businessman and lawyer, also served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father, and son, were hanged.[11] Lee had three siblings: Alice Finch Lee (1911–2014),[12] Louise Lee Conner (1916–2009), and Edwin Lee (1920–1951).[13] Although Nelle remained in contact with her significantly older sisters throughout their lives, only her brother was close enough in age to play with, though she grew closer with Truman Capote (1924–1984), who visited family in Monroeville during the summers from 1928 until 1934.[14][14]

While enrolled at Monroe County High School, Lee developed an interest in English literature, in part because teacher Gladys Watson became her mentor. After graduating from high school in 1944,[8] like her eldest sister Alice Finch Lee, Nelle attended the then all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery for a year, then transferred to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where, she studied law for several years. Nelle Lee also wrote for the university newspaper and a humor magazine, but to her father's great disappointment, left one semester before completing the credit hours necessary for a degree.[15][16] In the summer of 1948, Lee attended a summer school in European civilization at Oxford University in England, financed by her father, who hoped—in vain, as it turned out—that the experience would make her more interested in her legal studies in Tuscaloosa.[17]

To Kill a Mockingbird

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, quoted in Newquist, 1964[18]

In 1949, Lee moved to New York City and took a job—first at a bookstore, then as an airline reservation agent, in order to write in her spare time.[19] After publishing several long stories, Lee found an agent in November 1956; Maurice Crain would become a friend until his death decades later. The following month, at Michael Brown's East 50th Street townhouse, friends gave Nelle a gift of a year's wages with a note: "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas."[20]

Origin
The first edition cover for To Kill a Mockingbird

In the spring of 1957, a 31-year-old Lee delivered the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman to Crain to send out to publishers, including the now-defunct J. B. Lippincott Company, which eventually bought it.[21] At Lippincott, the novel fell into the hands of Therese von Hohoff Torrey—known professionally as Tay Hohoff. Hohoff was impressed. "[T]he spark of the true writer flashed in every line", she would later recount in a corporate history of Lippincott.[21] But as Hohoff saw it, the manuscript was by no means fit for publication. It was, as she described it, "more a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel".[21] During the next couple of years, she led Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was retitled To Kill a Mockingbird.[21] Meanwhile, interest in racial relations in the South had increased nationally; as the U.S. Supreme Court had issued its school desegregation decisions in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and the massive resistance strategy had begun in response, making headlines across the nation.

Like many unpublished authors, Lee was unsure of her talents. "I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told," Lee said in a statement in 2015 about the evolution from Watchman to Mockingbird.[21] Hohoff later described the process in Lippincott's corporate history: "After a couple of false starts, the story-line, interplay of characters, and fall of emphasis grew clearer, and with each revision—there were many minor changes as the story grew in strength and in her own vision of it—the true stature of the novel became evident." (In 1978, Lippincott was acquired by Harper & Row, which became HarperCollins which published Watchman in 2015.)[21] Hohoff described the give and take between author and editor: "When she disagreed with a suggestion, we talked it out, sometimes for hours" ... "And sometimes she came around to my way of thinking, sometimes I to hers, sometimes the discussion would open up an entirely new line of country."[21]

External video
After Words interview with Shields on Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, July 11, 2015, C-SPAN

One winter night, as Charles J. Shields recounts in Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, Lee threw her manuscript out her window and into the snow, before calling Hohoff in tears. Shields recollected that "Tay told her to march outside immediately and pick up the pages".[21]

When the novel was finally ready, the author opted to use the name "Harper Lee", rather than risk having her first name Nelle be misidentified as "Nellie".[22]

Published July 11, 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate bestseller and won great critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. It remains a bestseller, with more than 30 million copies in print. In 1999, it was voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a poll by the Library Journal.[23]

Autobiographical details in the novel

Like Lee, the tomboy Scout of the novel is the daughter of a respected small-town Alabama attorney. Scout's friend, Dill, was inspired by Lee's childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote;[11] Lee, in turn, is the model for a character in Capote's first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, published in 1948. Although the plot of Lee's novel involves an unsuccessful legal defense similar to one undertaken by her attorney father, the 1931 landmark Scottsboro Boys interracial rape case may also have helped to shape Lee's social conscience.[24]

While Lee herself downplayed autobiographical parallels in the book, Truman Capote, mentioning the character Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, described details he considered autobiographical: "In my original version of Other Voices, Other Rooms I had that same man living in the house that used to leave things in the trees, and then I took that out. He was a real man, and he lived just down the road from us. We used to go and get those things out of the trees. Everything she wrote about it is absolutely true. But you see, I take the same thing and transfer it into some Gothic dream, done in an entirely different way."[25]

After To Kill a Mockingbird

Middle years

Lee lived part-time for 40 years at 433 East 82nd Street in Manhattan, near her childhood friend Capote,[26] whose first novel, the semi-autobiographical Other Voices, Other Rooms had been published in 1948; a decade later Capote published Breakfast at Tiffany's, and over the next decade it would become a film, musical and two stage plays. As the To Kill a Mockingbird manuscript went into publication production in 1959, Lee accompanied Capote to Holcomb, Kansas, to help him research what they thought would be an article on a small town's response to the murder of a farmer and his family. Capote would expand the material into his best-selling book, In Cold Blood, serialized beginning in September 1965 and published in 1966.

To Kill a Mockingbird officially appeared on July 11, 1960, and Lee began a whirlwind of publicity tours, etc., which she found difficult given her penchant for privacy and many interviewers' characterization of the work as a "coming-of-age story".[27][28] Moreover, as the book (about racial relations in the 1930s) progressed through the production process, racial tensions in the South had increased. The Montgomery bus boycott occurred in 1955–56, and students at North Carolina A&T University staged the first sit-in months before publication. As the book became a best seller, Freedom Riders arrived in Alabama and were beaten in Anniston and Birmingham. Meanwhile, To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer prize for fiction and the 1961 Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and became a Reader's Digest Book Club condensed selection and an alternate Book of the Month Club selection.[29]

Lee helped with the adaption of the book to the 1962 Academy Award–winning screenplay by Horton Foote, and approved of the result: "I think it is one of the best translations of a book to film ever made."[30] She also escorted lead actor Gregory Peck around town. Peck won an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, the father of the novel's narrator, Scout. The families became close; Peck's grandson, Harper Peck Voll, is named after her.[31]

Initially, Lee tried to answer personally correspondence from fans, but when she began receiving more than 60 letters daily, she realized the demands on her time were too great. Her sister Alice became her lawyer, and Lee obtained an unlisted telephone number to reduce distractions from many people seeking interviews or public appearances. From the time of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird until her death in 2016, Lee granted almost no requests for interviews or public appearances and, with the exception of a few short essays, published nothing further until 2015. She did work on a follow-up novel—The Long Goodbye—but eventually filed it away unfinished.[32]

Lee also assumed significant care responsibilities for her father, who was thrilled with her success, and even began signing autographs as "Atticus Finch".[27] However, his health worsened and he died in Alabama on April 15, 1962. She decided to spend more time in New York City as she mourned, but over the decades her friend Capote became embroiled in a flamboyant jet-set lifestyle far from her preference for anonymity and a more spartan lifestyle. Lee preferred to visit friends at their homes (though she came to distance herself from those who criticized her drinking),[27] and also made unannounced appearances at libraries or other gatherings, particularly in Monroeville.[33]

In January 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Lee to the National Council on the Arts.[34]

Lee also realized that her book had become controversial, particularly with supporters of massive resistance. In 1966, Lee wrote a letter to the editor in response to the attempts of a Richmond, Virginia, area school board to ban To Kill a Mockingbird as "immoral literature":

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is 'immoral' has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.[11]

James J. Kilpatrick, editor of The Richmond News Leader, started the Beadle Bumble fund to pay fines for victims of what he termed "despots on the bench". He built the fund using contributions from readers and later used it to defend books as well as people. After the board in Richmond ordered schools to dispose of all copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, Kilpatrick wrote, "A more moral novel scarcely could be imagined." In the name of the Beadle Bumble fund, he then offered free copies to children who wrote in, and by the end of the first week, he had given away 81 copies.[35]

Beginning in 1978, with her sisters' encouragement, Lee returned to Alabama and began a factual book about an Alabama serial murderer and the trial of his killer in Alexander City, under the working title The Reverend, but also put it aside when she was not satisfied.[32][36] When Lee attended the 1983 Alabama History and Heritage Festival in Eufaula, Alabama, as her sister had arranged, she presented the essay "Romance and High Adventure".[37]

2005–2014

In March 2005, Lee arrived in Philadelphia—her first trip to the city since signing with publisher Lippincott in 1960—to receive the inaugural ATTY Award for positive depictions of attorneys in the arts from the Spector Gadon & Rosen Foundation.[38] At the urging of Peck's widow, Veronique Peck, Lee traveled by train from Monroeville to Los Angeles in 2005 to accept the Los Angeles Public Library Literary Award.[39] She also attended luncheons for students who have written essays based on her work, held annually at the University of Alabama.[30][40] On May 21, 2006, she accepted an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame, where graduating seniors saluted her with copies of To Kill a Mockingbird during the ceremony.[41]

On May 7, 2006, Lee wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey (published in O, The Oprah Magazine in July 2006) about her love of books as a child and her dedication to the written word: "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books."[42]

While attending an August 20, 2007, ceremony inducting four members into the Alabama Academy of Honor, Lee declined an invitation to address the audience, saying: "Well, it's better to be silent than to be a fool."[43][44]

Lee being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, November 5, 2007

On November 5, 2007, George W. Bush presented Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest civilian award in the United States and recognizes individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors".[45][46]

In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Lee the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given by the United States government for "outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts".[47]

In a 2011 interview with an Australian newspaper, Rev. Dr. Thomas Lane Butts said Lee now lived in an assisted-living facility, wheelchair-bound, partially blind and deaf, and suffering from memory loss. Butts also shared that Lee told him why she never wrote again: "Two reasons: one, I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say, and I will not say it again."[48]

On May 3, 2013, Lee had filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court to regain the copyright to To Kill a Mockingbird, seeking unspecified damages from a son-in-law of her former literary agent and related entities. Lee claimed that the man "engaged in a scheme to dupe" her into assigning him the copyright on the book in 2007 when her hearing and eyesight were in decline, and she was residing in an assisted-living facility after having suffered a stroke.[49][50][51] In September 2013, attorneys for both sides announced a settlement of the lawsuit.[52]

In February 2014, Lee settled a lawsuit against the Monroe County Heritage Museum for an undisclosed amount. The suit alleged that the museum had used her name and the title To Kill a Mockingbird to promote itself and to sell souvenirs without her consent.[53][54] Lee's attorneys had filed a trademark application on August 19, 2013, to which the museum filed an opposition. This prompted Lee's attorney to file a lawsuit on October 15 that same year, "which takes issue the museum's website and gift shop, which it accuses of 'palming off its goods', including T-shirts, coffee mugs other various trinkets with Mockingbird brands."[55]

2015: Go Set a Watchman

According to Lee's lawyer Tonja Carter, following an initial meeting to appraise Lee's assets in 2011, she re-examined Lee's safe-deposit box in 2014 and found the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman. After contacting Lee and reading the manuscript, she passed it on to Lee's agent Andrew Nurnberg.[56][57]

On February 3, 2015, it was announced that HarperCollins would publish Go Set a Watchman,[58] which includes versions of many of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. According to a HarperCollins press release, it was originally thought that the Watchman manuscript was lost.[59] According to Nurnberg, Mockingbird was originally intended to be the first book of a trilogy: "They discussed publishing Mockingbird first, Watchman last, and a shorter connecting novel between the two."[60]

Jonathan Mahler's account in The New York Times of how Watchman was only ever really considered to be the first draft of Mockingbird makes this assertion seem unlikely.[21] Evidence where the same passages exist in both books, in many cases word for word, also further refutes this assertion.[61]

The book was controversially[4] published in July 2015 as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, though it has been confirmed to be the first draft of the latter, with many narrative incongruities, repackaged and released as a completely separate work.[4] The book is set some 20 years after the time period depicted in Mockingbird, when Scout returns as an adult from New York to visit her father in Maycomb, Alabama.[62] It alludes to Scout's view of her father, Atticus Finch, as the moral compass ("watchman") of Maycomb,[63] and, according to the publisher, how she finds upon her return to Maycomb, that she "is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood."[64]

Not all reviewers have such a harsh opinion about the publication of the sequel book. Michiko Kakutani in Books of The Times article[65] finds that the book "makes for disturbing reading" when Scout is shocked to find... that her beloved father... has been affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares her horror and confusion... Though it lacks the lyricism... the portions of "Watchman" dealing with Scout's childhood and her adult romance with Henry capture the daily rhythms of life in a small town and are peppered with portraits of minor characters" and she mentions that "Students of writing will find 'Watchman' fascinating." While not fully praising the book she finds the publication of "Watchman" an important step stone in understanding Harper Lee's work.[65]

The publication of the novel (announced by her lawyer) raised concerns over why Lee, who for 55 years had maintained that she would never write another book, would suddenly choose to publish again. In February 2015, the State of Alabama, through its Human Resources Department, launched an investigation into whether Lee was competent enough to consent to the publishing of Go Set a Watchman.[10] The investigation found that the claims of coercion and elder abuse were unfounded,[66] and, according to Lee's lawyer, Lee was "happy as hell" with the publication.[67]

External video
Discussion with Marja Mills on The Mockingbird Next Door, July 23, 2014, C-SPAN

This characterization, however, was contested by many of Lee's friends.[4][68][69] Marja Mills, author of The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee, a friend and former neighbor, painted a very different picture.[70] In her piece for The Washington Post, "The Harper Lee I Knew",[68] she quoted Alice—Lee's sister, whom she described as "gatekeeper, advisor, protector" for most of Lee's adult life—as saying, "Poor Nelle Harper can't see and can't hear and will sign anything put before her by anyone in whom she has confidence." She made note that Watchman was announced just two and a half months after Alice's death and that all correspondence to and from Lee went through her new attorney. She described Lee as "in a wheelchair in an assisted living center, nearly deaf and blind, with a uniformed guard posted at the door" and her visitors "restricted to those on an approved list."[68]

The New York Times columnist Joe Nocera continued this argument.[4] He also took issue with how the book was promoted by the 'Murdoch Empire' as a "newly discovered" novel, attesting that the other people in the Sothebys meeting insisted that Lee's attorney was present in 2011, when Lee's former agent (who was subsequently fired) and the Sotheby's specialist found the manuscript. They said she knew full well that it was the same one submitted to Tay Hohoff in the 1950s that was reworked into Mockingbird, and that Lee's lawyer Tonja Carter had been sitting on the discovery, waiting for the moment when she, and not Alice, would be in charge of Harper Lee's affairs.[4]

Stephen Peck, son of actor Gregory Peck, also expressed concern. Responding to the question of how he thought his father would have reacted to the book, he said that he "would have appreciated the discussion the book has prompted, but would have been troubled by the decision to publish it."[69] Peck noted that his father considered Lee a dear friend. She gave him the pocket watch that had belonged to her father, on whom she modeled Atticus and that Gregory wore it the night he won an Oscar for the role.[69] Stephen, who is president and chief executive of the United States Veterans Initiative, went on to say "I think he would have felt very protective of her," and that his father would have counseled Lee not to publish Watchman because it could taint Mockingbird, one of the most beloved novels (in) American history.[69]

"Not to protect himself, but to protect her," Peck said, also noting that the decision to publish it was made not long after the death of Alice Lee, who had long handled Harper Lee's affairs. "You just don't know how that decision was made. ... If he had to, he would have flown down to talk to her. I have no doubt." Later in the article, which was posted in The Wall Street Journal, he said, "To me, it was an unedited draft. Do you want to put that early version out there or do you want to put it in the University of Alabama archives for scholars to look at?"[69]

Death

Lee died in her sleep on the morning of February 19, 2016, aged 89.[71][72] Prior to her death, she lived in Monroeville, Alabama.[73] On February 20, her funeral was held at First United Methodist Church in Monroeville.[74] The service was attended by close family and friends, and the eulogy was given by Wayne Flynt.[75]

After her death, The New York Times filed a lawsuit that argued that since Lee's will was filed in a probate court in Alabama that it should be part of the public record. They argued that wills filed in a probate court are considered part of the public record, and that Lee's should follow suit.[76]

Fictional portrayals

Harper Lee was portrayed by Catherine Keener in the film Capote (2005), by Sandra Bullock in the film Infamous (2006), and by Tracey Hoyt in the TV movie Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story (1998).[77] In the adaptation of Truman Capote's novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1995), the character of Idabel Thompkins, who was inspired by Capote's memories of Lee as a child, was played by Aubrey Dollar.

Works

Books

Articles
  • "Love—In Other Words". Vogue. April 15, 1961. pp. 64–65.
  • "Christmas to Me". McCall's. December 1961.
  • "When Children Discover America". McCall's. August 1965.
  • "Romance and High Adventure". 1983. A paper presented in Eufaula, Alabama, and collected in the anthology Clearings in the Thicket (1985).
  • "Open letter to Oprah Winfrey". O, The Oprah Magazine. July 2006.
gollark: This means that spherical geometry applies to it, logically speaking.
gollark: Anyway, this is good because it's spherical.
gollark: Too bad, you just did.
gollark: This is the complex plane, with a "point at infinity".
gollark: Consider the Riemann sphere.

See also

References
  1. "President Bush Honors Medal of Freedom Recipients" (Press release). The White House. November 5, 2007.
  2. Harris, Paul (May 4, 2013). "Harper Lee sues agent over copyright to To Kill A Mockingbird". The Guardian.
  3. Langer, Emily (February 19, 2016). "Harper Lee, elusive author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' is dead at 89". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  4. Nocera, Joe (July 24, 2015). "The Harper Lee 'Go Set A Watchman' Fraud". The New York Times. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  5. Oldenburg, Ann (February 3, 2015). "New Harper Lee novel on the way!". USA Today. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
  6. Alter, Alexandra (February 3, 2015). "Harper Lee, Author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Is to Publish a Second Novel". The New York Times. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
  7. Grimes, William (February 19, 2016). "Harper Lee, Author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Dies at 89". The New York Times. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  8. Anderson, Nancy G. (March 19, 2007). "Nelle Harper Lee". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. Auburn University at Montgomery. Retrieved November 3, 2010.
  9. Mills, Marja (2014). The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee. Penguin. p. 181. ISBN 9780698163836.
  10. Kovaleski, Serge (March 11, 2015). "Harper Lee's Condition Debated by Friends, Fans and Now State of Alabama". The New York Times. New York. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  11. Shields, Charles J. (2006). Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Henry Holt and Co. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  12. Woo, Elaine (November 22, 2014). "Lawyer Alice Lee dies at 103; sister of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' author". Los Angeles Times.
  13. "Louise L. Conner Obituary". The Gainesville Sun.
  14. Nancy Grisham Anderson, "Harper Lee: 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'A Good Woman's Words,'" p. 334 et seq. in Susan Ashmore, Dorr Youngblood and Lisa Lindquist, Alabama Women: Their Lives and University of Alabama Press 2017
  15. Anderson pp. 335-336
  16. Cep, Casey (2019). Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. Knopf. ISBN 9781101947869. page cites unavailable in audiobook version
  17. "Harper Lee's Oxford Summer," Department of Continuing Education, Oxford University: unsigned article is also undated, but written after publication of Go Set a Watchman; accessed December 12, 2016.
  18. Newquist, Roy, ed. (1964). Counterpoint. Chicago: Rand McNally. ISBN 1-111-80499-0.
  19. Anderson p. 336
  20. Lee, Harper (December 12, 2015). "Harper Lee: my Christmas in New York" – via www.theguardian.com.
  21. Mahler, Jonathan (July 12, 2015). "The Invisible Hand Behind Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'". The New York Times. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  22. Maslin, Janet (June 8, 2006). "A Biography of Harper Lee, Author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'". The New York Times. Retrieved November 30, 2014.
  23. "1960, To Kill a Mockingbird". PBS. Retrieved November 30, 2014.
  24. Johnson, Claudia Durst (1994). To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries. Twayne.
  25. Nance, William (1970). The Worlds of Truman Capote. New York: Stein & Day. p. 223.
  26. Oleksinski, Johnny. Find out if New York's greatest writers lived next door. The New York Post April 14, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/04/14/find-out-if-new-yorks-greatest-writers-lived-next-door/ Accessed April 14, 2017
  27. Cep p.
  28. Anderson pp. 337-338
  29. Anderson p. 341
  30. Bellafante, Ginia (January 30, 2006). "Harper Lee, Gregarious for a Day". The New York Times. Retrieved August 3, 2008.
  31. Lacher, Irene (May 21, 2005). "Harper Lee raises her low profile for a friend". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
  32. "A writer's story: The mockingbird mystery". The Independent. June 4, 2006. Retrieved August 3, 2008.
  33. Anderson p. 242
  34. "26 to Be Advisory Board for National Endowment". The New York Times. January 28, 1966. Retrieved November 30, 2014. In a parallel development to- day, the President appointed Harper Lee, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "To Kill a Mockingbird." and Richard Diebenkorn, artist, to the National Council on the Arts.
  35. "Newspapers: Spoofing the Despots". Time. January 21, 1966. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  36. Kemp, Kathy (November 10, 2010). "In search of Harper Lee". AL.com.
  37. Monroe County Heritage Museums (1999). Monroeville: The Search for Harper Lee's Maycomb. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-7385-0204-5. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
  38. Reynolds, Jennifer (February 11, 2015). "Meeting 'Mockingbird' author Harper Lee". Delaware County Daily Times. Archived from the original on March 9, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  39. Nelson, Valerie J. (August 19, 2012). "Veronique Peck dies at 80; Gregory Peck's widow was L.A. philanthropist". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 2, 2012.
  40. Lacher, Irene (May 21, 2005). "Harper Lee raises her low profile for a friend". Los Angeles Times.
  41. "Commencement 2006". Notre Dame Magazine. Retrieved November 30, 2014.
  42. "Harper Lee Writes Rare Item for O Magazine". The Washington Post. Associated Press. June 26, 2006.
  43. Paraphrase of a well-known American saying: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." The origin of the saying is uncertain; see Quote Investigator, 17 May 2010.
  44. "Author has her say". The Boston Globe. August 21, 2007.
  45. Martin, Virginia (November 5, 2007). "Harper Lee given Presidential Medal of Freedom". The Birmingham News.
  46. "Author Lee receives top US honour". BBC News. November 6, 2007.
  47. "Harper Lee". National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
  48. Toohey, Paul (July 31, 2011). "Miss Nelle in Monroeville". The Daily Telegraph. Sydney, NSW, Australia. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
  49. Jeffrey, Don; Van Voris, Bob (May 3, 2013). "Harper Lee Sues Agent Over 'Mockingbird' Royalties". Bloomberg.
  50. "'Mockingbird' author Lee sues over copyright in NY". AP. Retrieved May 4, 2013.
  51. "'To Kill a Mockingbird' author Lee sues her agent over copyright". Reuters. May 4, 2013.
  52. Matthews, Cara (September 6, 2013). "Harper Lee settles 'To Kill a Mockingbird' suit". USA Today.
  53. "Harper Lee settles legal action against Alabama museum". BBC News. February 20, 2014.
  54. Gates, Verna Gates (November 2, 2013). "Town dependent on fame of Harper Lee book stung by museum lawsuit". Monroeville, Alabama. Reuters.
  55. Lewis, Paul (November 1, 2013). "Lawsuit divides town which inspired classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird". The Guardian.
  56. Carter, Tonja B. (July 12, 2015). "How I Found the Harper Lee Manuscript". The Wall Street Journal.
  57. Flood, Alison (July 13, 2015). "Harper Lee may have written a third novel, lawyer suggests". The Guardian.
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