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To Kill a Mockingbird Author Harper Lee Dies

By February 19, 2016Authors

Harper Lee dies, aged 89

Nelle Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, and until very recently it remained her only work making the author the best known one hit wonder ever.

Today the sad news reaches us that Harper Lee has passed away, aged 89, and while she may not have been a prolific author, her passing is likely to be felt across the literary world today.

Lee was born on 28th April, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama and finding this out was an immense pleasure to me, as we share a birthday and Scout is one of my literary heroes. Lee moved to New York in 1949, where she would eventually purse a writing career, eight years later she submitted the manuscript for To Kill a Mockingbird to J. B. Lippincott & Co, who asked her to rewrite it. Readers can now of course enjoy the original version too, whether that’s what Lee wanted or not.

It would take until July 1960 for Lee’s novel to be published and To Kill a Mockingbird was met with critical and commercial success. It was 1961 when the author won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

In 2007 Lee suffered a stroke, recovered and returned to her hometown. As a fiercely private individual, not much is known of Lee’s life but To Kill a Mockingbird remains one of the greatest novels ever written.

At the time of her death, Harper Lee has two published novels to her name, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Go Set a Watchman, based on the original novel prior to the author’s rewrite, and it’s through those works that Harper Lee will remain immortal.

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