Newly Discovered Novel by Harper Lee Featuring Characters From “To Kill a Mockingbird” Will Be Published This Summer

From HarperCollins (Publisher of the New Book in the U.S.):

Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, is thrilled to announce it has acquired North American rights to a newly discovered novel by Harper Lee, beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel, which Lee titled Go Set a Watchman will be published on July 14th, 2015.
The deal was negotiated by Michael Morrison, President and Publisher of HarperCollins US General Books Group and Canada, via Harper Lee’s lawyer, Tonja Carter.
Harper Lee says, “In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called Go Set a Watchman. It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, persuaded me to write a novel from the point of view of the young Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn’t realized it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation I shared it 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.”
Go Set a Watchman is set during the mid-1950s and features many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird some twenty years later. Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus. 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 childhood.

Read the Complete HC Statement
From the AP:

The publisher plans a first printing of 2 million copies.
Financial terms were not disclosed…Watchman” will be published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Lee’s publisher said the author is unlikely to do any publicity for the book. She has rarely spoken to the media since the 1960s, when she told one reporter that she wanted to “to leave some record of small-town, middle-class Southern life.” Until now, “To Kill a Mockingbird” had been the sole fulfillment of that goal.

Read the Complete AP Article

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