About the author

“[A writer] should write about what he knows and write truthfully.” —Harper Lee 

Harper Lee has followed her own advice in writing about what she knows. In fact, critics have noted many parallels between the novel and Lee's early life. "Nelle" Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, the youngest of four children. She grew up in Monroeville, a small town in southwest Alabama. Her father was a lawyer who also served in the state legislature from 1926-1938.

As a child, Lee was a tomboy and a precocious reader. After she attended public school in Monroeville she attended Huntingdon College, a private school for women in Montgomery for a year and then transferred to the University of Alabama. After graduation, Lee studied at Oxford University. She returned to the University of Alabama to study law but withdrew six months before graduation. She moved to New York in 1949 and worked as a reservations clerk for Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways.

While in New York, she wrote several essays and short stories but none were published. Her agent encouraged her to develop one short story into a novel. In order to complete it, Lee resigned from her work and was supported by friends.  In 1957, she submitted the manuscript to J. B. Lippincott Company. Although editors found the work too episodic, they saw promise in the book and encouraged Lee to rewrite it. In 1960, with the help of Lippincott editor Tay Hohoff, To Kill a Mockingbird was published.

To Kill a Mockingbird became an instant popular success. A year after the novel was published, 500,000 copies had been sold and it had been translated into ten languages. Critical reviews of the novel were mixed. It was only after the success of the film adaptation in 1962 that many critics reconsidered its literary value.

To Kill a Mockingbird was honoured with many awards including the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 and was made into a film in 1962 starring Gregory Peck. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It actually was honoured with three awards: Gregory Peck won the Best Actor Award, Horton Foote won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar and a design team was awarded an Oscar for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration B/W. Lee worked as a consultant on the screenplay adaptation of the novel.