Lee's to-be-second novel, written before the release of Mockingbird, will be published in July.
NPR: As second novels go, this one should prove a doozy. More than five decades after Harper Lee published her first — and, so far, only — novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee's publisher has announced that she plans to release a new one. The book, currently titled Go Set a Watchman, will be published July 14.
The Associated Press, which broke the news, reports that Lee actually finished the 304-page novel in the mid-1950s — before Mockingbird was published in 1960 — but Lee had decided to shelve the work at the time. Lee says she was surprised to stumble upon Watchman again last fall, after her friend and attorney Tonja Carter unearthed an old manuscript that had been attached to an original typescript of Mockingbird.
"After much thought and hesitation," Lee says in a statement, "I shared [the manuscript] with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."
The new book will be intricately tied to Lee's first. Scout, the little girl at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird, returns home two decades later as an adult in Go Set a Watchman. She has left New York City for Maycomb, Ala., in order to visit her father, Atticus.
There, according to the publisher's announcement, "she is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhoood."
The announcement comes as something of a reversal for the author, who has said little to the press and published even less since the release of To Kill a Mockingbird. That book won the Pulitzer Prize, inspired a beloved film adaptation and continues to earn accolades from, well, just about everyone. It has also sold more than 40 million copies.
Go Set a Watchman will get a first printing of two million copies. Listen later for NPR's Lynn Neary, who will cover the the publication on All Things Considered.
that story continues below:
NPR: The publisher Harper is releasing a new book by Harper in July — Harper Lee that is. It's a follow-up to To Kill A Mockingbird, though it was actually written first.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that there are no second acts in American lives, but 88-year-old Harper Lee is challenging that idea. Until now, she had only published one book, the much-loved classic "To Kill A Mockingbird." Her second novel comes out in July. As NPR's Lynn Neary reports, "Go Set A Watchman" was actually written before her best-seller.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: Harper Lee thought the manuscript was lost, but her lawyer unearthed it late last year. Jonathan Burnham of Harper Publishing, which acquired the rights to the book, called it a remarkable literary event.
JONATHAN BURNHAM: It's thrilling. I mean, people have waited - have speculated for a long time about there being another possible novel, and it's a wonderful surprise that the new novel turns out to be one that was written before "Kill A Mockingbird" but actually revisits the same story.
NEARY: Burnham says this novel reads like a sequel to "To Kill A Mockingbird." It is set 20 years after the events in that book when Jean Louise - better known as Scout - returns to her home town in Alabama for a visit. Burnham says Harper Lee originally submitted this manuscript to Tay Hohoff, an editor at Lippincott, her original publisher.
BURNHAM: And Ms. Hohoff asked her to effectively write another novel but told from the point of view of the central character, Jean Louise, as a young girl. So Harper Lee put this version to one side and wrote a whole new novel which then became "To Kill A Mockingbird."
CHARLES SHIELDS: I am vindicated. I've been saying it for a long time that there was another novel out there.
NEARY: Charles Shields is the author of "Mockingbird," a biography of Harper Lee. He says in researching his book he came across references to an earlier novel, but no one knew what happened to it. He says Lee was still searching for her voice when this book was written.
SHIELDS: I'm afraid that the strong hand of Tay Hohoff as an editor is going to be missing and readers might little taken aback by what Harper Lee was writing like when she was a young woman just out of the University of Alabama and did not yet - had not yet found her feet as a novelist.
NEARY: But publisher Jonathan Burnham expects no one will be disappointed.
BURNHAM: It needs no editing at all. It stands perfectly as it is. This is pure, unadulterated Harper Lee.
NEARY: "Go Set A Watchman" will get a blockbuster first printing - 2 million copies. Lynn Neary, NPR News.