Harper Lee: US author of To Kill a Mockingbird dies aged 89

BBC | 19 February 2016

Image copyrightGetty Images

Image captionHarper Lee only ever released two novels - To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set A Watchman

Harper Lee, the reclusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird, has died at the age of 89.

The news was confirmed by the mayor's office in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

The novelist was born Nelle Harper Lee on 28 April 1926.

In 1960, she published To Kill a Mockingbird, a huge critical and commercial success which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. A sequel Go Set a Watchman, was published in 2015.

To Kill a Mockingbird sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.

Obituary: Harper Lee

Lee was born 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She was the youngest of four children of lawyer Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee.

She was a guardedly private person, respected and protected by residents of her town, rarely giving interviews.

"The world has lost a brilliant mind and a great writer," said Spencer Madrie, owner of Ol' Curiosities and Book Shoppe, a small, independent book store in Lee's hometown that focuses largely on Lee's works.

"We will remember Harper Lee for her candour, her talent, and the truths she gave the world, perhaps before the world was ready. We are grateful to have had a connection to an author who offered so much.

"There will always be something missing from Monroeville and the world at large in the absence of Harper Lee."

Live: Tributes paid to Harper Lee

The author Malorie Blackman posted "Harper Lee R.I.P." on her Twitter account.

Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted: "Rest in peace, Harper Lee. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Image copyrightReuters

Image captionHarper Lee made a rare public appearance in 2007 to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George Bush

To Kill a Mockingbird - at a glance

In the small fictional town of Maycomb in the depression-ravaged American South, a black man named Tom Robinson is falsely accused of raping a white woman.

A lawyer named Atticus Finch defends Robinson in court. The frenzy stirred up by the case and her father's quest for justice are seen through the eyes of Finch's six-year-old daughter Scout.

The book explores issues of race, class and the loss of innocence.

To Kill a Mockingbird

5,000

copies in initial print run

$20,000

value of a signed first-edition copy

• Over 40m global sales
• 40 languages into which it has been translated
• 8 Oscar nominations for 1962 film version
• 3 Oscar wins

Getty

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." - Atticus Finch to Scout.

"It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived." - Scout Finch.

The novel is currently being adapted for the stage.

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionThe sequel contains some of the same characters as To Kill a Mockingbird, including Scout and Atticus Finch

The manuscript for the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set A Watchman was discovered and published in 2015.

Many bookshops remained open all night to cope with demand.

The book is set 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird - although Lee actually wrote Go Set a Watchman first.

Watchman contains some of the same characters as Mockingbird, including Scout and her father Atticus Finch.

The publication proved controversial as early reviewers noted that Atticus expresses racist views in the story.

First published in July 1960, Mockingbird has sold more than 30m copies worldwide, and that total is climbing by more than 1m copies a year, according to HarperCollins.

Harper Lee agrees to ebook version of To Kill a Mockingbird

Author announces on her 88th birthday that novel will be released as ebook and downloadable audiobook on 8 July

The Guardian (UK) | 28 April 2014 

Harper Lee in 2007. Photograph: Rob Carr/AP

Harper Lee has agreed for To Kill a Mockingbird to be made available as an ebook and digital audiobook, filling one of the biggest gaps in the digital library.

To Kill A Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary edition
by Harper Lee

In a rare public statement released through her publisher, HarperCollins, Lee said: "I'm still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries. I am amazed and humbled that Mockingbird has survived this long. This is Mockingbird for a new generation."

Harper Lee quotes: 10 of the best

The Guardian | 19 February 2016

The author of To Kill a Mockingbird has passed away, aged 89. Here are 10 of the most memorable quotes from her classic novel – about tolerance, love friendship, and justice

Harper Lee Photograph: Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ‘em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.

Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

Harper Lee with Mary Badham, who played Scout in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird, on set in 1962. Photograph: Everett/REX Shutterstock

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

In First Chapter of Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman,’ Sprouts With Deep Roots

International New York Times | 10 July 2015

“She had turned from an overalled, fractious, gun-slinging creature into a reasonable facsimile of a human being.”

More than 55 years after readers fell under the spell of the feisty tomboy Jean Louise “Scout” Finch in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the character has been resurrected — as a more mature and outwardly civilized, but still rebellious, young woman — in “Go Set a Watchman,” an unexpected second novel by Ms. Lee.

The first chapter of the new book, which was published by The Wall Street Journal and by The Guardian on Friday, continues the story of Scout and her father, Atticus, about 20 years after the action in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” While the novel shares literary DNA with Ms. Lee’s famous debut — the same wry humor, biting banter and finely drawn characters flicker throughout — this is clearly a different story. It is narrated in the third person, from the perspective of Jean Louise (who has outgrown the nickname Scout, it seems), and the heroine, and the times, have changed.

In the opening passages, Jean Louise is in her 20s, taking a train to Alabama from New York. She is returning home to Maycomb to visit Atticus, now 72, who refuses to retire from his law practice despite his age and infirmity.

'To Kill A Mockingbird' Author Harper Lee Dies

NPR | 19 February 2016

Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel that was published in 1960 and didn't publish another book for more than 50 years afterward. She avoided the spotlight her entire life. She was 89.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD -- winner of Pulitzer Prize, by Harper Lee

https://app.box.com/s/c8sv05l8ugtojnxch8ho

The Bible voted more valuable to humanity than Darwin's Origin of Species in Folio Society poll [DUH!]

The Bible voted more valuable to humanity than Darwin's Origin of Species in Folio Society poll

The Bible, which edged narrowly ahead of Darwin's text, was chosen by the British public because it 'contains guidelines on how to be a good person'

The Independent | 13 November 2014

The Bible has been voted more valuable to humanity than Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by the British public.

The Folio Society survey conducted by YouGov asked members of the public to name the books of most significance for the modern world.

The Bible edged just in front with 37 per cent of the vote, while Darwin’s book explaining his theory of natural selection was chosen by 35 per cent of the 2,044 British adults surveyed.

On the Origin of Species was chosen because it “answers fundamental questions of human existence”, while The Bible was cited because it “contains principles / guidelines on how to be a good person”.

To Kill a Mockingbird

https://app.box.com/s/c8sv05l8ugtojnxch8ho

To Kill A Mockingbird

By Harper Lee

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.