To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee Biography

Although Harper Lee has long maintained that To Kill a Mockingbird is not autobiographical, critics have often remarked upon the striking similarities between the author's own childhood and that of her youthful heroine, Scout Finch. Nelle Harper Lee was born in 1926, the youngest of three children of Amasa Coleman Lee, a lawyer who practiced in the small town of Monroeville, Alabama. Like Scout, who could be bullied into submission with the remark that she was "gettin' more like a girl," Lee was "a rough 'n' tough tomboy," according to childhood friends.

Harper Lee
Harper Lee

Summers in Monroeville were brightened by the visits of young Truman Capote who stayed with the Lees' next-door neighbors and who would later become well-known for his book In Cold Blood and for his short stories and novels, including Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The games young Nelle and her brother played with Capote were likely the inspiration for the adventures Scout and Jem had with Dill, their own "summer" friend.

After graduating from the public schools of Monroeville, Lee attended a small college in nearby Montgomery before attending the University of Alabama for four years. She left school six months short of earning a law degree, however, in order to pursue a writing career. In the early 1950s, the author worked as an airline reservations clerk in New York City, writing essays and short stories in her spare time. After her literary agent suggested that one of her stories might be expanded into a novel, Lee quit her airline job. With the financial support of some friends, she spent several years revising the manuscript of To Kill a Mockingbird before submitting it to publishers. Several more months of revision followed the feedback of her editors, who found the original version more like a string of short stories than a cohesive novel. The final draft was finally completed in 1959 and published in 1960. The novel was a dramatic success, earning generally positive reviews and achieving bestseller status. Lee herself attained considerable celebrity as the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 and was made into an Oscar-winning film in 1962.

Horton Foote adapted the book into the 1962 film. The Motion Picture Guide, Volume T-V, 1927-1983, states that the screenplay

so wonderfully followed the spirit of Lee’s novel that it prompted the author to remark, "I can only say that I am a happy author. They have made my story into a beautiful and moving motion picture. I am very proud and grateful."

The Academy of Motion Pictures presented Foote with the academy award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Gregory Peck starred as Atticus; he took the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Since then, aside from a few magazine pieces in the early 1960s, the reclusive author has published nothing, although she has been reported to have been working on a second novel. Despite the lack of a follow-up work, Lee's literary reputation remains secure and even has grown since the debut of her remarkable first novel.

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