Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Her second and final novel, Go Set a Watchman, was an earlier draft of Mockingbird that was published in July 2015 as a sequel.
Portrait by Truman Capote, 1960
The first edition cover for To Kill a Mockingbird
Lee being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, November 5, 2007
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in June 1960 and became instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a classic of modern American literature; a year after its release, it won the Pulitzer Prize. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.
First edition cover – late printing
Harper Lee and President George W. Bush at the November 5, 2007, ceremony awarding Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom for To Kill a Mockingbird