Harper Lee (Nelle Harper Lee 1926-2016)

 

“All I want is to be the Jane Austen of Southern Alabama”

Harper Lee

“My book had a universal theme…It’s not a ‘racial’ novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization, not necessarily Southern civilization.”

Harper Lee

 

 

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Parents

• Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee

  • Lee uses her mothers maiden name Cunningham for a significant family in the town of Maycomb

• Her father was a lawyer with the heroic characteristics of Atticus

  • There is debate about the extent that the novel is autobiographical and about the extent that Atticus is connected to Amasa

  • Whenever people would interview Lee about the novel they would ask about her connection to Scout. She would push back and describe the connections as minimal

• Amasa defended two African American men convicted of murder and lost the case during Lee’s childhood

  • Lee was very young at the time and this event had a life long impact on her

  • This was an inspiration for the book

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Education and Publication

• Lee studied law at the University of Alabama

  • She graduated as Editor in Chief of the school’s humor magazine Rammer Jammer

• She moved to New York City in 1949 in hopes of becoming a writer

  • She worked at the airlines as a ticket collector

• After financial support from her friends, she moved on to writing full time

• To Kill a Mockingbird started as a collection of short stories

  • The novel was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961

    • “A year after the novel was published, 500,000 copies had been sold and it had been translated into 10 languages. Critical reviews of the novel were mixed. It was only after the success of the film adaptation in 1962 that many critics reconsidered To Kill a Mockingbird.”-Chicago Public Library

  • It has sold over 40 million copies worldwide

    • “To Kill a Mockingbird” alone sells more than a million copies a year worldwide, generating some $3 million in royalties for the copyright holder

  • Two years after its publication it was turned into a memorable film

    • The film won three Oscars

    • This film immortalized Atticus Finch and his scruffy daughter as key figures of American literature

 

Charles Baker (Dill) Harris

• A charming character from the novel

• Dill is based on the next-door neighbor and childhood friend of Lee, Truman Capote

• Capote worked with Lee in his research of a murder case for the New Yorker that became his famous novel In Cold Blood (1965)

  • It was rumored that he was the actual author of To Kill a Mockingbird but this was proven false when a letter was found from Capote discussing the draft of the book that Lee had sent to him

• Truman Capote went on to become a famous author who is known for many of his short stories and novels. Some of the most famous being Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood

• His celebrity was fed by publicity stunts and his clever socializing with the elite of Hollywood

  • His Black and White ball was an iconic event that became known a party of the century

  • The Swans were a group of famous beautiful and powerful women who formed an elite circle under his careful choosing and publicity

 

Go Set a Watchman

• The manuscript was written in 1957, three years before the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird

• It serves as a sequel to the events of the first book

• Scout returns home to Alabama to visit her father

  • Like Lee, in this text Scout has gone to law school and then moved to New York to become a writer before eventually deciding to move back home to Maycomb/Monroeville

• This book was released in 2015, shortly before Lee’s death in 2016

  •  “Go Set a Watchman,” her second novel, was the best-selling book of 2015 in the United States, and sold more than 1.6 million hardcover copies, according to NPD BookScan.

• The public was confused by this book because of the way it portrays Atticus Finch among other characters that were beloved in the first book

  • In this text, Atticus has grown old and fallen into the patterns of racial bigotry that he stood against in Mockingbird

  • Scout mirrors the reader in her outrage and betrayal over her discovery of her father’s shortcomings

• Despite less than positive reviews, the book was a bestseller and worth considering and comparing to To Kill a Mockingbird

• For the purposes of this production, To Kill a Mockingbird served as our primary source and the characterizations found in Go Set a Watchman were not considered as valuable source material in this context

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