Woman of letters

Her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is the introduction, for most American children, to civil rights, literature, and the judicial system.

A reclusive author, she eschews all publicity and declines all interview requests. 

In 2007, she was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 2010 and was awarded the National Medal of Arts.  

Childhood & Family

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926.  Her first name, Nelle, was her grandmother’s name spelled backwards.

The youngest of four children, she grew up as a tomboy in a small town in Alabama, US.

Her father was a lawyer, a member of the Alabama state legislature and also owned part of the local newspaper. For most of Lee’s life, her mother suffered from mental illness, rarely leaving the house.

Education

Lee enrolled at Monroe County High School where she developed an interest in English literature. After graduating in 1944, she went to the all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery.

Lee stood apart from the other students—she couldn’t have cared less about fashion, makeup or dating. Instead, she focused on her studies and on her writing. Lee was a member of the literary honor society and the glee club.

Pursuing her interest in writing, Lee at the University of Alabama contributed to the school’s newspaper and its humor magazine, the Rammer Jammer. She eventually became the editor of the magazine.

In her junior year, Lee was accepted into the university’s law school, which allowed students to work on law degrees while still undergraduates.

The demands of her law studies forced her to leave her post as editor of the magazine. After her first year in the law program, she went to Oxford University in England as an exchange student.

Returning to her law studies that fall, Lee dropped out after the first semester. She soon moved to New York City to follow her dreams to become a writer.

Career

In 1949, a 23-year-old Lee arrived in New York City. She struggled for several years, working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and for the British Overseas Air Corp.

In 1956, the Browns gave Lee an impressive Christmas present—to support her for a year so that she could write full time. She quit her job and devoted herself to her craft. 

In the mid-60s she travelled and worked with her childhood friend Truman Capote as a research assistant for his novel, In Cold Blood. Capote dedicated the novel to her. 

‘To Kill A Mockingbird’

In 1960, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was published and picked up by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild. 

It was an immediate bestseller and won great critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. It remains a bestseller with more than 30 million copies in print. In 1999, it was voted “Best Novel of the Century” in a poll by the Library Journal.

The book was made into a successful movie in 1962, earning eight Academy Award nominations and winning four awards.

Post success

By the mid-1960s, Lee was reportedly working on a second novel, but it was never published. During the 1970s, Lee largely retreated from public life.

During the mid-1980s, she began a factual book about an Alabama serial murderer, but also put it aside when she was not satisfied. Her withdrawal from public life prompted unfounded speculation that new publications were in the works.

In 2013, Lee filed a lawsuit in federal court against the son-in-law of her former agent. The writer charges that, in 2007, the agent “engaged in a scheme to dupe” her out of the copyright to her most famous work and only published novel, later diverting royalties from the work.

Later that year, Lee launched another legal effort. She filed suit against the Old Courthouse Museum located her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. The famous author is upset over ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ related merchandise sold in the museum’s gift shop, which she believes infringes on her trademarks. She is seeking damages in the case and for the offending items to be destroyed.

Lee finally allowed for her famous work to be released as an e-book in 2014. She signed a deal with HarperCollins for the company to put out ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ in an e-book and a digital audio editions.

In February 2015, 55 years after her novel ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ was published, it was announced that 88 year-old Lee would publish her second novel, ‘Go Set a Watchman’.