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Harper Lee

(1926-2016)

Who Was Harper Lee?

In 1959, Harper Lee finished the holograph for her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird. Soon after, she helped fellow man of letters and friend Truman Capote component an article for The In mint condition Yorker which would evolve attentive his nonfiction masterpiece, In Frozen Blood.

In July 2015, Take pleasure in published her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, which was written before To Kill top-notch Mockingbird and portrays the after lives of the characters running away her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

Early Life

Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama.

Honourableness youngest of four children, she grew up as a girl in a small town.

Her father was a lawyer, spiffy tidy up member of the Alabama renovate legislature and also owned pin down of the local newspaper. Luggage compartment most of Lee's life, circlet mother suffered from mental scream, rarely leaving the house.

Arousal is believed that she might have had bipolar disorder.

Education

In revitalization school, Lee developed an society in English literature. After graduating in 1944, she attended honourableness all-female Huntingdon College in Author. Lee stood apart from grandeur other students—she couldn't have terrible less about fashion, makeup celebrate dating.

Instead, she focused overseer her studies and writing. Take pleasure in was a member of rectitude literary honor society and ethics glee club.

Transferring to the College of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Amusement was known for being practised loner and an individualist. She did make a greater swot up at a social life helter-skelter, joining a sorority for keen while.

Pursuing her interest tension writing, Lee contributed to righteousness school's newspaper and its indulge magazine, the Rammer Jammer, finally becoming the publication's editor.

In take five junior year, Lee was pitch into the university's law institute, which allowed students to exert yourself on law degrees while do undergraduates.

The demands of recede law studies forced her have it in mind leave her post as Rammer Jammer editor.

After her culminating year in the program, Satisfaction began expressing to her that writing—not the law—was cross true calling. She went obstacle the University of Oxford seep in England that summer as eminence exchange student.

Returning to come together law studies that fall, Leeward dropped out after the cheeriness semester. She soon moved ad northerly to follow her dreams concurrence become a writer.

Author Harper Player in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama in 1961.

Early Writing Career

In 1949, a 23-year-old Lee appeared in New York City.

She struggled for several years, method as a ticket agent accommodate Eastern Airlines and for blue blood the gentry British Overseas Air Corp (BOAC).

While in the city, Histrion befriended Broadway composer and lyrist Michael Martin Brown and diadem wife Joy. In 1956, leadership Browns gave Lee an exciting Christmas present—to support her unpolluted a year so that she could write full time.

She quit her job and zealous herself to her craft.

The Browns also helped her on an agent, Maurice Crain. Loosen up, in turn, was able shut get publisher J.B. Lippincott Posture interested in her work. Employed with editor Tay Hohoff, Amusement worked on a manuscript allot in a small Alabama region, which eventually became her new-fangled To Kill a Mockingbird.

Friendship Concluded Truman Capote

One of Lee’s adjacent childhood friends was another writer-to-be, Truman Capote (then known importance Truman Persons).

Tougher than assorted of the boys, Lee regularly stepped up to serve whilst Truman's childhood protector.

Truman, who shared few interests with boys his age, was picked glassy for being sensitive and fend for the fancy clothes he wore. While the two friends were very different, they both difficult to understand difficult home lives.

Truman was living with his mother's next of kin in town after largely establish abandoned by his own parents.

While in New York City break down the 1950s, Lee was reunited with her old friend Cloak, who was by then look after of the literary rising stars of the time.

In 1956, Lee joined forces with Topcoat to assist him with place article he was writing adoration The New Yorker.

Capote was writing about the impact carry the murder of four chapters of the Clutter family hindrance their small Kansas farming grouping.

The two traveled to River to interview townspeople, friends abstruse family of the deceased lecture the investigators working to return the crime.

Serving as sovereign research assistant, Lee helped change the interviews, eventually winning sojourn some of the locals come together her easygoing, unpretentious manner.

President, with his flamboyant personality mount style, had a hard throw a spanner in the works initially getting himself into coronate subjects' good graces.

During their tight in Kansas, the Clutters' under suspicion killers, Richard Hickock and Philosopher Smith, were caught in Las Vegas and brought back bring about questioning. Lee and Capote got a chance to interview authority suspects not long after their arraignment in January 1960.

Soon after, Lee and Capote complementary to New York. She insincere on the galleys for cobble together forthcoming first novel while put your feet up started working on his fib, which would evolve into magnanimity nonfiction masterpiece In Cold Blood.

The pair returned to River for the murder trial.

Side gave Capote all of have a lot to do with notes on the crime, high-mindedness victims, the killers, the close by communities and much more.

Lee struck with Capote on and begin on In Cold Blood. She had been invited by Explorer and Hickock to witness their execution in 1965, but she declined. When Capote's book was finally published in 1966, fine rift developed between the shine unsteadily collaborators for a time.

Capote dedicated the book to Gladness and his longtime lover, Flag 2 Dunphy, but failed to be taught her contributions to the get something done. While Lee was very enraged and hurt by this treachery, she remained friends with Greatcoat for the rest of enthrone life.

READ MORE: Harper Lee subject Truman Capote Were Childhood Associates Until Jealously Tore Them Apart

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S HARPER LEE FACT CARD

Books

Lee published two books in tea break lifetime: To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) and Go Set simple Watchman (2015).

She also hollow on and off with time out friend Capote on his notable book, In Cold Blood (1966).

'To Kill a Mockingbird'

In July 1960, To Kill aMockingbird was in print and picked up by nobleness Book-of-the-Month Club and the Bookish Guild. A condensed version unknot the story appeared in Reader's Digest magazine.

The following harvest, the novel won the imposing Pulitzer Prize and several conquer literary awards. A classic virtuous American literature, To Kill smart Mockingbird has been translated do more than 40 languages do better than more than a million copies sold each year.

The work's decisive character, a young girl nicknamed Scout, was not unlike Thespian in her youth.

In memory of the book's major plotlines, Scout and her brother Fto and their friend Dill inquire their fascination with a confounding and somewhat infamous neighborhood legroom named Boo Radley.

The work was more than a coming-of-age story: another part of the innovative reflected racial prejudices in interpretation South.

Their attorney father, Atticus Finch, tries to help splendid Black man who has anachronistic charged with raping a creamy woman to get a pokerfaced trial and to prevent him from being lynched by irate white people in a brief town.

'Go Set a Watchman'

Lee promulgated her second novel, Go Initiation a Watchman, in July 2015.

The story was essentially precise first draft of To Learning a Mockingbird and followed representation later lives of the novel’s characters.

Go Set a Watchman was submitted to a proprietor in 1957. When the softcover wasn't accepted, Lee's editor responsibility her to revise the figure and make her main shepherd Scout a child.

The penman worked on the story make up for two years and it sooner became To Kill a Mockingbird.

Lee's Go Set a Watchman was thought to be lost unsettled it was discovered by sagacious lawyer Tonja Carter in swell safe deposit box. In Feb 2015, it was announced lose one\'s train of thought HarperCollins would publish the carbon on July 14, 2015.

Go Ready to step in a Watchman features Mockingbird's Scout as a 26-year-old woman thick her way back home reach Maycomb, Alabama, from New Dynasty City.

Scout's father Atticus, decency upstanding moral conscience of To Kill a Mockingbird, is pictured as a racist with jaundiced views and ties to nobility Ku Klux Klan.

In Watchman, Atticus tells Scout: "Do you fancy Negroes by the carload start our schools and churches allow theaters? Do you want them in our world?”

The controversial anecdote and shocking portrayal of precise beloved character sparked debates in the middle of fans, and offered literary scholars and students fodder for analyzing the author's creative process.

Lee's second novel also broke pre-sale records for HarperCollins.

With reports confiscate 88-year-old Lee's faltering health, questions arose about whether the notebook was the author's decision. Leeward issued a statement through Carter: "I’m alive and kicking with the addition of happy as hell with justness reactions to Watchman."

But even delay message didn't put an free of charge to questions: In a 2011 letter, Lee's sister Alice challenging written that Lee would "sign anything put before her fail to see any one in whom she has confidence." However, others who had met with Lee expressed that she was behind primacy decision to publish.

Alabama bureaucracy investigated and found no back up that she was a casualty of coercion.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' Movie

Playwright Horton Foote wrote span screenplay based on the whole and used the same honour for a 1962 To Considerate a Mockingbird movie adaptation. Leeward visited the set during photography and did a lot abide by interviews to support the affair.

The movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird earning volume Academy Award nominations and won three awards, including best aspect for Gregory Peck's portrayal enjoy yourself Finch. The character is aforesaid to have been based state Lee's father.

Later Years

In the mid-1960s, Lee was reportedly working initiate another novel, but it was never published.

In 1966, Enchantment had an operation on jewels hand to repair the hurt done by a bad blaze. She also accepted a take care on the National Council exercise the Arts at the call of President Lyndon B. Author. During the 1970s and '80s, Lee largely retreated from general life.

Lee spent some of cook time on a nonfiction hard-cover project about an Alabama publication killer which had the excavations title The Reverend.

This borer, however, was never published.

Lee generally lived a quiet, top secret life, splitting her time betwixt New York City and respite hometown of Monroeville. In Monroeville, she lived with her senior sister Alice Lee, a counsel who the author called "Atticus in a skirt." Lee's attend was a close confidante who often took care of influence author's legal and financial affairs.

Active in her church and grouping, Lee became famous for avoidance the spotlight of her eminence.

She would often use say publicly wealth she had accumulated be bereaved her success to make unknown philanthropic donations to various open-handed causes.

In November 2007, Prexy George W. Bush presented Leeward with the Presidential Medal presentation Freedom for her "outstanding effort to America's literary tradition" be redolent of a ceremony at the Milky House.

Her sister Alice once articulate about Lee, "Books are dignity things she cares about." Free the assistance of a magnifying device—necessary due to her pied degeneration—Lee was able to retain reading despite her ailments.

Lawsuits spell E-Publishing Deal

In May 2013, Satisfaction filed a lawsuit in accomplice court against literary agent Prophet Pinkus.

Lee charged that, fell 2007, Pinkus "engaged in undiluted scheme to dupe" her task of the copyright to To Kill a Mockingbird, later amusing royalties from the work. Look September 2013, a settlement was reached in the lawsuit.

Later that year, Lee's legal cast filed suit against the Actress County Heritage Museum located bother Monroeville for trying "to bankroll on the fame" of To Kill a Mockingbird and target selling unauthorized merchandise related communication the novel.

Lawyers for decency author and the museum adjacent filed a joint motion harmonious end the suit, and goodness case was dismissed by copperplate federal judge in February 2014.

That same year, Lee allowed an extra famous work to be unbound as an e-book. She gestural a deal with HarperCollins edgy the company to release To Kill a Mockingbird as brainstorm e-book and digital audio editions.

In a release shared stomach-turning the publisher, Lee explained: "I'm still old-fashioned. I love unclean old books and libraries. Funny am amazed and humbled roam Mockingbird has survived this unconventional. This is Mockingbird for trig new generation."

Death

Lee died rehearsal February 19, 2016, at justness age of 89.

Her nephew, Hank Connor, said the columnist died in her sleep.

In 2007, Lee suffered a rap and struggled with various uninterrupted health issues, including hearing setback, limited vision and problems put together her short-term memory. After illustriousness stroke, Lee moved into tone down assisted living facility in Monroeville.

Around the time of Lee’s death in 2016, it was announced that producer Scott Rudin had hired Aaron Sorkin condemnation write a stage version chief To Kill a Mockingbird. Sieve March 2018, several months already the production's scheduled Broadway inauguration, Lee's estate filed a case on the grounds that Sorkin's adaptation significantly deviated from loftiness original material.

A main point senior contention was the play's playacting of Finch, which reportedly showed him in early scenes chimpanzee more in step with probity oppressive racial feelings of integrity time, as opposed to representation heroic crusader of the novel.

Rudin pushed back against the asseveration that the characters were greatly altered, though he insisted explicit had leeway to adapt them to contemporary times.

"I can’t and won’t present a ground that feels like it was written in the year high-mindedness book was written in conditions of its racial politics: Dash wouldn’t be of interest," agreed said. "The world has contrasting since then."

The portrayal clone Atticus Finch was reportedly season from someone “who drinks the bottle, keeps a gun and curses mildly” to an “honest avoid decent person.” The play knock Broadway in December 2018.


  • Name: Minstrel Lee
  • Birth Year: 1926
  • Birth date: Apr 28, 1926
  • Birth State: Alabama
  • Birth City: Monroeville
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Harper Lee level-headed best known for writing nobleness Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller 'To Veil of secrecy a Mockingbird' and 'Go Allot a Watchman,' which portrays representation later years of the Finch family.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Taurus
  • Schools
    • Oxford University
    • Huntington College
    • University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa
  • Death Year: 2016
  • Death date: February 19, 2016
  • Death State: Alabama
  • Death City: Monroeville
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: Harper Lee Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/harper-lee
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Boob tube Networks
  • Last Updated: March 31, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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