Harper Lee

Early Childhood
Born April 28, 1926 in
Monroeville, Alabama

Her father, A.C. Lee,

practiced law. He once
defended two black men
accused of murdering a
white storekeeper. Both of
the defendants were found
guilty and hanged.

Growing up, there was an

unusual man in her
neighborhood who would
hide objects in a nearby tree
for Lee and her childhood
friends to discover.
View of South Alabama South Alabama
Avenue. The house of the Avenue in about 1915.
mysterious neighbor can be The Lees house was
found at the bottom of the about where the car is.
picture, where all the trees
are seen. Ms. Lee's home is
the second house from the
bottom.
 Early Adulthood
In 1944, Lee graduated from Monroe County
High School in Monroeville, and enrolled at the
all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery,
AL for one year.
pursued a law degree at the University of
Alabama from 1945 to 1949
wrote for several student publications and
spent a year as editor of the campus humor
magazine, Rammer Jammer
 Early Adulthood
spent a year as an exchange student in Oxford
University, Wellington Square;
Six months before finishing her studies, she
went to New York to pursue a literary career;
During the 1950s, she worked as an airline
reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and
British Overseas Airways;
In 1959 Lee accompanied Truman Capote to
Holcombe, Kansas, as a research assistant for
Capote's classic 'non-fiction' novel In Cold
Blood.
 Adulthood
She spent some of her time on a nonfiction
book project about an Alabama serial killer,
which had the working title The Reverend. But
the work was never published.
Lee continues to live a quiet, private life in
New York City and Monroeville. Active in her
church and community, she usually avoids
anything to do with her still popular novel.
Harper Lee, the Acclaimed
Writer
1957 submitted
manuscript for her
novel; was urged to
rewrite it
Spent over two years
reworking it
1960 To Kill a
Mockingbird (her only
novel) was published
To Kill a Mockingbird
was an immediate
best seller
Won the Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction in 1961
 Harper Lee, the Acclaimed
Writer

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make

music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up
people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they
don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for
us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

(a famous quote)
 To Kill a Mocking Bird
"But there is one way in this country in which all men
are created equal - there is one human institution that
makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid
man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man
the equal of any college president. That institution,
gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of
the United States of the humblest J.P. court in the land,
or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts
have their faults, as does any human institution, but in
this country our courts are the great levelers, and in
our courts all men are created equal." (Finch
defending Tom Robinson)
A Major Influence: Truman
Capote
Capote is famous for
writing In Cold Blood
& Breakfast at
Tiffanys.
The character of Dill
is based on Capote,
Harper Lees actual
playmate,
schoolmate, and
neighbor in
Monroeville.
Like Capote, Dill is
creative, bold, and
suffers from an
unsatisfactory family
history.
 1962the novel was
turned into a film
starring Gregory
Peck

It received a
humanitarian award
and several
Academy Award
nominations.
 Harper Lee, the Acclaimed
Writer
Although her first novel gained a huge success, Lee did
not continue her career as a writer. She returned from
New York to Monroeville, where she has lived avoiding
interviews.
To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into several
languages. An illustrated English edition appeared in
Moscow in 1977 for propaganda reasons.
In the foreword Nadiya Matuzova writes: "But her only,
remarkable novel which continued the best traditions of
the American authors who wrote about America's South
- Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell and
many others - will forever belong in the treasure of
progressive American literature."