Nelle Harper Lee

Nelle Lee attended public school in Monroeville and upon graduating high school in 1944, followed in her sister Alice's footsteps by enrolling at Huntingdon College in Montgomery about two hours away. An all-female college, Lee reportedly didn't share the typical interests of many of her classmates, such as fashion, though she did join the glee club and was a member of the literary honor society. After two years, Lee transferred to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa where she continued her pursuit of English, eventually becoming the editor of the University's humorous magazine, the Rammer Jammer. Mills reports that she was quite a fan of football and the Crimson Tide in later life, an interest that is perhaps reflected in Jem's character. Lee toyed with becoming a lawyer like her father, as well as her older sister Alice, enrolling in the law program at UA. But after a stint abroad at Oxford University, both she and Alice were considerable Anglophiles, she returned to the University of Alabama for only a semester, dropping out to move to New York and pursue her writing career before completing her degree. *

She was 23 years old when she arrived in New York city in 1949. She worked for several years booking flights for Eastern Airlines and later for the British Overseas Air Corporation while struggling to establish herself as a writer. In New York, she met industrial musical theater composer Michael Martin Brown and his wife Joy who introduced her to Maurice Crain. Crain agreed to represent Lee in November of 1956 and the beginning of a lifelong, loyal friendship was made. Apart from his advocacy, it was a gift from Brown that gave Lee the push she needed: On Christmas day, 1956, she received a note from the Browns offering to cover her expenses for a year so that she could write whatever she wanted.

The manuscript of Go Set a Watchmen, which would become To Kill a Mockingbird, was submitted by Crain to the J.B. Lippincott Company amongst other in the spring of 1957 (Nelle was 31 years old). The company purchased the manuscript and entrusted its development to Therese VonHohoff Torrey - Tay Hohoof - who was impressed with the novel but was not prepared to publish it in its current state. Through several drafts, the manuscript eventually became the published novel of To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel differs drastically from the manuscript of Go Set a Watchmen; it is told from the young Scout's perspective, growing up at the feet of her trailblazing father, rather than Scout the young woman returning home from New York to discover her childhood and father no longer hold the majesty of innocent nostalgia.

The book was basically an instant classic and shot Nelle Lee to the top of the Great American Novelist list. The critically acclaimed film, adapted by Horton Foote and starring Gregory Peck, solidified the work as a cultural touchstone that would endure for many years. Lee reportedly enjoyed a long and substantial friendship with the Peck family and supported the filming processes while entrusting its writing to Horton. Famously suspicious of the media, Lee made few public appearances and rarely spoke at length when she did. In The Mockingbird Next Store, Mills attributes this to a myriad of factors: the pressure of a second novel and it never materializing, she found speculation about that and other personal topics - such as her sexuality - invasive and offensive, and that she simply enjoyed a low profile, not covetous of luxury goods or travel. Her few rare public appearances have included nomination to the National Arts Council by Lyndon Johnson in 1966 and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2007.

Interesting Ideas or Questions:

• Nelle is named after a grandmother who's name was Ellen (Nelle, backwards). She was called Nelle by her friends and family but used Harper Lee as a pen name to avoid the mispronunciation of "Nellie".

• Noteworthy that despite being modeled after her Father, Lee gave Atticus her mother's Maiden name - Finch. Especially in light of Lee's choice to exclude a biologically maternal figure in the household. What might this say about Lee's conception of Atticus?

• Lee's grandfather on Amasa's side was a confederate soldier (Cader Alexander Lee).

• In some ways, the structure of the play - a memory unfolding through the eyes of Jean Louise that centers on her younger self combines the perspective of Go Set a Watchmen with the structure of To Kill a Mockingbird. Interesting that the play was published many years before Go Set a Watchmen was available to the public.

• Some of Lee's other writings:

  • • From the Rammer Jammer, 1945: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a32705/harper-lee-esquire/

    • This is Christmas (McCall Article): http://web.archive.org/web/20070701015651/www.chebucto.ns.ca/culture/HarperLee/christmas.html

      • • • (More about the article) https://www.circeinstitute.org/blog/harper-lee-and-christmas-me

    • When Children Discover American (McCalls Article): https://medium.com/@cjrice/when-children-discover-america-66ca5a02e855

    • Her Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey, 2006: https://fs.blog/harper-lee-on-reading/

Sources:

• https://time.com/4234210/harper-lee-childhood/

• For more on Monroeville in 1912 and Lee's Father: https://books.google.com/books?id=26zcAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false

• https://www.biography.com/writer/harper-lee

• The Mockingbird Next Door, by Marja Mills

• For more on the relationship with editor Tay Hohoff: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/books/the-invisible-hand-behind-harper-lees-to-kill-a-mockingbird.html