Harper Lee Biography

Harper Lee Biography
“Nelle” Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, the

youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and
Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. 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. Photo by Truman Capote; taken
After graduation, Lee studied at Oxford University. She from 1st edition dust jacket,
courtesy Printers Row Fine &
returned to the University of Alabama to study law but
Rare Books.
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 quit working and was supported
by friends who believed in her work. 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 10
languages. Critical reviews of the novel were mixed. It was only after the success of
the film adaptation in 1962 that many critics reconsidered To Kill a Mockingbird.
To Kill a Mockingbird was honored 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
honored 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.
Author Truman Capote was Lee’s next-door neighbor from 1928 to 1933. In 1959 Lee
and Capote traveled to Garden City, Kan., to research the Clutter family murders for
his work, In Cold Blood (1965). Capote dedicated In Cold Blood to Lee and his partner
Jack Dunphy. Lee was the inspiration for the character Idabel in Capote’s Other
Voices, Other Rooms (1948). He in turn clearly influenced her character Dill in To Kill
a Mockingbird.
Harper Lee divides her time between New York and her hometown of Monroeville,
Ala., where her sister Alice Lee practices law. Though she has published no other
work of fiction, this novel continues to have a strong impact on successive
generations of readers.
Harper Lee had many childhood experiences that are similar to those of her young
narrator in To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch:
Harper Lee’s Childhood

She grew up in the 1930s in a rural southern Alabama town.
Her father, Amasa Lee, is an attorney who served in the state legislature in
Alabama.
Her older brother and young neighbor (Truman Capote) are playmates.
Harper Lee is an avid reader as a child.
She is 6 years old when the Scottsboro trials are widely covered in national, state
and local newspapers.
Scout Finch’s Childhood

She grew up in the 1930s in a rural southern Alabama town.
Her father, Atticus Finch, is an attorney who served in the state legislature in
Alabama.
Her older brother (Jem) and young neighbor (Dill) are playmates.
Scout reads before she enters school and reads the Mobile Register newspaper in
first grade.
She is 6 years old when the trial of Tom Robinson takes place.
Content last updated: October 31, 2001
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“Nelle” Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, the

Harper Lee’s Childhood

Scout Finch’s Childhood

Content last updated: October 31, 2001

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