Harper Lee

28 April 1926 – 19 February 2016

Harper Lee was an American novelist from Monroeville, Alabama, best known for her 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and became a staple of American school curricula. She published little else during her lifetime and largely avoided public appearances. A second novel, Go Set a Watchman, an earlier draft featuring the same characters, appeared in 2015.

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Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Harper Lee.

Life events

Born in Monroeville, Alabama
28 April 1926

Nelle Harper Lee was born the youngest of four children to Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Studied law at the University of Alabama
1945 – 1949

She transferred from Huntingdon College to the University of Alabama, where she wrote for campus publications and entered the law programme, leaving in 1949 without taking a degree.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Moved to New York City to write
1949

Lee settled in Manhattan and worked as an airline reservation clerk while writing fiction in her spare time.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Assisted Truman Capote with research in Kansas
1959

Lee accompanied her childhood friend Truman Capote to Holcomb, Kansas, to help gather interviews and notes for the reporting that became In Cold Blood.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Career ✓
Publication of To Kill a Mockingbird
11 July 1960

The novel was published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. and became a commercial and critical success.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
May 1961

To Kill a Mockingbird received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom
5 November 2007

Lee was presented with the United States' highest civilian honour by President George W. Bush.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Publication of Go Set a Watchman
14 July 2015

An earlier manuscript featuring the characters of To Kill a Mockingbird was released as her second novel.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Died in Monroeville, Alabama
19 February 2016

Lee died in her sleep at an assisted living facility in her home town at the age of 89.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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