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| Name: | Harper Lee | |||
| Birth: | April 28 1926 | |||
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Biography
Born the youngest child of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Lee on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, Nelle Harper Lee, for all that she only published one novel, remains one of America’s most respected writer’s of the American South.
In the footsteps of her father, a newspaper owner and editor, a State Legislator, and practicing lawyer, Lee studied law at the University of Alabama from 1946 to 1949, and continued her education as an exchange student for a year at Oxford University, Wellington Square. Abandoning her studies six months prior to completion, Lee relocated to New York City to pursue a literary career. Through the 1950’s Lee lived frugally, supporting herself as an airline reservation clerk. In 1959 she employed by her childhood friend, Truman Capote, as research assistant for his ‘non-fiction’ novel, In Cold Blood.
Lee has only been five years old in 1931 when the famous ‘Scottsboro Trials’ occurred. The first of these trials began with the allegations that two white women had been raped by nine young black men. Despite irrefutable evidence that neither woman had been raped, the all white juries convicted and sentenced to death all of the defendants except one, a 12-year old boy. Over the course of the next six years, subsequent trials overturned all but one of the convictions. It is evident that Lee utilized the strong influence these trials had upon her childhood by loosely incorporating them into her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
The novel further incorporates many autobiographical aspects of Lee’s life. Her father lives as the character of Atticus Finch, Truman Capote emerges as Dill, and Lee herself is portrayed by Scout, the novel’s main protagonist and narrator. Maycomb, Alabama, the setting for To Kill a Mockingbird, is prototypical of nearly all small Southern towns of the time and it is probable that many of the secondary characters within the novel are completely derived from Lee’s observations of her childhood home.
Published in 1960 after two years of revisions and rewrites, To Kill a Mockingbird won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. In 1962, the movie by the same name, starring Gregory Peck was released and Harper Lee’s future as a successful author realized. Despite rumors that she was drafting a second novel as well as a nonfiction book, Lee has published only a few small essays: "Love—In Other Words" printed in Vogue in 1961; "Christmas to Me" printed in McCalls, also in1961; and "When Children Discover America" printed in McCalls in1965.
Lee was one of two persons named by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the National Council of Arts in 1966. In 1990, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by her alma mater, the University of Alabama and in 1997, an honorary doctorate of humane letters by Spring Hill College, Mobile Alabama.
Lee currently resides in Monroeville, Alabama with her sister Alice. Considered reclusive and non-communicative, Lee has never been vocal about her works or achievements. Translated into dozens of languages, To Kill a Mockingbird remains one of the very few books that in its nearly 50 years since publication, has never been out of print.
