Fifty five years after publishing the American classic ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ reclusive author Harper Lee is finally publishing a second novel.
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It has been almost 60 years since Harper Lee published her first and only novel To Kill a Mockingbird. This summer, another novel by the author will finally see the light of day. It’s a sequel to Mockingbird that was actually written before the author’s Pulitzer Prize winning book. The Associated Press reports that Go Set a Watchman, is due for publication this upcoming July.
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Go Set a Watchman was completed in the mid-1950s. It features Scout, the main character and narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird as an adult. It was a first attempt at a novel for Lee and she felt that it was “a pretty decent effort.” However, as the AP reports on Feb. 3, Lee’s editor at the time was touched by Scout’s childhood flashbacks and prompted her to write a completely different novel that later became the Pulitzer Prize winner and the inspiration for the multiple award winning and highly acclaimed film of the same name.
“I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn’t realized it [Go Set a Watchman] had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it,” Lee explained in a statement issued by HarperCollins Publishers. “After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”
The Washington Post relates via HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham that this “is a remarkable literary event.” Previously unknown to the public and thought to be lost by the author, Go Set a Watchman is an “extraordinary gift.”According to the BBC, Tom Weldon, publisher at HarperCollins’ parent company Penguin Random House, said that the book’s publication is set to be “a major event.” The initial run for publication will create two million copies and allow millions of fans worldwide to reacquaint themselves with one of the most moving stories ever written. This is not even to mention that the story surrounding this book is absolutely captivating on its own. “The story of this first book -- both parent to To Kill a Mockingbird and rather wonderfully acting as its sequel -- is fascinating,” said Weldon.
This exciting news brings up questions of what Harper Lee has been up to all of this time. According to HarperLee.com, after the publication of the wildly successful To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee didn’t continue with her writing career. She went to her hometown of Monroeville and lived there with her sister (who passed away last year at the age of 103), purposefully avoiding interviews. Some misinformation also seemed to have leaked and colored the public’s memory of the author. In a forward to one version of the book, it was incorrectly noted that “Harper Lee did not live to see her fiftieth birthday.” The author is currently 88.
Harper Lee has not said much to the press in all of these decades. Many journalists have made trips to her hometown, attempting to gain access, but to no avail. However, one former Chicago Tribune journalist, Marja Mills, was able to not only get an interview but to become good friends with the author and her sister. The results of this friendship became a book called The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee which was published last year.
*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com
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