To Kill a Mockingbird is no sermon. Its lessons are presented in effortless style, tackling the complexity of race issues with startling clarity and a strong sense of reality.
President George W. Bush awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Harper Lee in 2007.
Larry Downing/Reuters
Atticus Finch, we learn in Go Set a Watchman, once attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting, and welcomes pro-segregation speakers at local council meetings. But is he really so different to the man we know from To Kill a Mockingbird?
Already having baby-naming regret? Don’t worry – look to the past for alternative role models.
Still of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Universal Pictures
Some parents have been horrified to discover that, in Harper Lee’s new book, Atticus Finch – long admired as a paragon of virtue – is a racist. Why? Because their kids are named after him. So, what now?
Despite receiving mixed reviews, Go Set a Watchman was the most pre-ordered book in publisher HarperCollins’ history.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Talk of a possible third book to follow this week’s release of Go Set a Watchman suggests the ‘delicious mystery’ of Harper Lee will continue for years to come. So what basis is there for the rumours?
The Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird and the ‘new’ Atticus of Go Set a Watchman come across as caricatures in today’s context.
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The hoopla surrounding the novel’s release is misguided; after all, how much power could a novel written 50 years ago wield in today’s charged environment?
What does the opening chapter of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman tell us about what’s to come?
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Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee, is one of the most anticipated follow-ups in history, to be published next week after a 55-year hiatus. So what does the opening chapter prime us to expect?
Harper Lee, pictured circa 1962, has announced a return to the literary world.
Wikimedia Commons
By now there can be few people who don’t know Harper Lee’s supposedly long-lost manuscript, Go Set a Watchman, will be published in July. It will be the first book published by Lee since To Kill a Mockingbird…
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Harper Lee receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush in 2007.
Larry Downing/Reuters
The announcement of the upcoming publication of Go Set a Watchman – a sequel to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird actually written before the famous novel – has, not surprisingly, set off a flurry of…
Lee’s second novel, Go Set a Watchman, will have a more adult centre of gravity.
Chris Burke
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, and was voted The Greatest Novel of All Time in a London Daily Telegraph poll of 2008…