Harper Lee Biography

Harper Lee
_Harper Lee was born in 1926 on April 28th in Monroeville, Alabama. The youngest of four children she grew up as a tomboy in a small town. Her father was a lawyer, a member of the Alabama state legislature, and also owned part of the local newspaper. For most of Harper Lee’s life, her mother suffered from a mental illness, rarely leaving the house. It was believed she might have had Bipolar Disorder. _
_In high school Harper developed an interest in English Literature. After graduating in 1944, she went to the all girls Huntingdon Collage in Montgomery. Harper focused _on her studies and on her writing and was a member of the Literary Honor Society and the Glee club.
In her junior year she was accepted into the University’s Law school which allowed students to work on law degrees while still undergraduates. She transferred to Oxford University in England as an exchange student. She soon moved to New York City to follow her dreams of being a writer.
In 1949 Harper arrived in New York City, she struggled for several years, working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and British Overseas Air Corp.
_In 1956 Michael Martin Brown supported Harper for a year so she could write full-time. She quit her job and devoted herself to her writing. Michael also found her an agent Maurice Crain, he was able to get the publishing firm interested in her novel, which was first titled “Go set a watchmen” then “Atticus” then “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Harper Lee finished the manuscript in 1959._
In 1960 “To Kill a Mockingbird_” was published and picked up by the Book-of-the-month Club and the Literary Club._
The following year, “To kill a Mockingbird” won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and several other literary awards. Horton Foote wrote a screenplay of the novel and used the same title for the 1962 film adaption.
By mid 1960’s Harper Lee began writing another novel but it was not published. That same year Harper had an operation on her hand to...