“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
There isn’t a book lover in the world who doesn’t hold ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ close to its heart. This work of fiction by Harper Lee was her very first book and remained her only one for over 50 years. Published in 1960, it gave Lee one of the most prestigious awards, i.e. the Pulitzer Prize.
Nelle Harper Lee was born and raised in Monroeville, Alabama, the youngest of four children of Frances Cunningham (Finch) and Amasa Coleman Lee. Her first name, Nelle, was her grandmother's name spelled backwards, and the name she uses. Harper Lee is her pen name. Her mother was a homemaker; her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, practiced law and served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. Before he became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged.
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Her publishers had told her to rewrite and redraft the entire book as it was more of a series of anecdotes than a proper novel. Afterwards, it was renamed as ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, which, as we all know, has become a symbol of modern American Literature.
Harper Lee had taken inspiration from real life incidents in order to create the story of that book.As Scout’s character in To Kill a Mockingbird was inspired by Lee herself, the character of Dill was inspired by Truman Capote, her childhood friend, and later, a fellow writer. The case which the character’s father had taken upon in the book is similar to the one her father lost in real life.
After publishing the book, she went to help Capote, by being his research assistant, and they together, in 1966, went on to publish the book, In Cold Blood under Truman’s