If you’ve been waiting more than 50 years for a new book from Harper Lee or a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, your patience is about to be rewarded. Lee’s publisher, Harper (which only makes this story slightly confusing), announced that the author’s second novel, titled Go Set a Watchman, will finally be published and released this coming July.
Lee actually wrote Go Set a Watchman before To Kill a Mockingbird in the 1950s. The story is set in the same town (Maycomb, Ala.) with many of the same characters. But according to Lee (via The New York Times), her editor liked the flashbacks from the character, Scout Finch, and asked Lee to write a different novel from that perspective. Go Set a Watchman will take place 20 years later.
(It feels a bit wrong to embed a scene from the movie adaptation of a legendary novel, but videos, photos and tweets are what we like to do here. Besides, Gregory Peck won the Best Actor Academy Award in 1963 for his performance as Atticus Finch.)
To Kill a Mockingbird has sold more than 40 million copies since it was published in 1960, continues to sell one million copies a year and has been translated in over 40 languages. Is there any one of us who did not go through school without reading it at least once? Lee never published a second novel and thought the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman had been lost.
“I hadn’t realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it,” Lee said in a statement. “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.”
You can pre-order Go Set a Watchman now on Amazon. The book is set for a July 14 release.
[AP]
