Author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" Harper Lee is to publish a second novel

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is considered to be an American literary masterpiece, a best seller that has provoked many discussions about racial and social injustice. It brought instant fame to its author, Harper Lee, but she never published another book...until now!

At the age of 88, Lee has revealed that she wrote another novel, a sequel to “To Kill a Mockingbird,” featuring an aging Atticus Finch and his grown up daughter, Scout.

This month, Ms. Lee’s publisher announced its plans to release the novel, recently rediscovered, which Ms. Lee completed in the mid-1950s, before she wrote “To Kill A Mockingbird.” The book will be titled “Go Set a Watchman,” and takes place 20 years later in the same fictional town, Maycomb, Ala. Jean Louise Finch, or Scout, the heroine of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” returns to visit her father. It covers racial tensions of the South in the 1950s and looks at the complicated relationship between father and daughter. The novel  is to be released this July. 

Harper Lee abandoned the manuscript after her editor suggested she write a new book from the young heroine’s perspective and to set it during her childhood. No doubt her publishers will be hoping this second novel has the same success as "To Kill a Mockingbird" adapted into a 1962 film and has sold more than 40 million copies globally since it was published in 1960.

Ms. Lee said she had thought the draft of “Go Set a Watchman” had been lost or destroyed. Then last year her friend and lawyer, discovered the manuscript attached to an original typed manuscript of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The book’s publisher, HarperCollins, plans to print two million copies of the new book and release it on 14 July this year. 

Find out more about our publisher packs by clicking here. 

Image: Horia Varlan, Flickr