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Cover of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

  • 320 pages · about 5 hours
  • First published 1960
  • 213 editions
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1 About this book

To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1960 Southern Gothic novel by American author Harper Lee. It became instantly successful after its release; in the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize a year after its release, and it has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.

Despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality, the novel is renowned for its warmth and humor. Atticus Finch, the narrator's father, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Classics
  • Courage
  • Compassion
  • Domestic fiction
  • Bildungsromans
  • Race relations
  • Coming of age
  • Family life

2 What to expect

Told by young Scout Finch in 1930s Alabama, while her father defends a Black man falsely accused of a crime. Gentle, funny childhood episodes give way to a powerful courtroom story about racism and justice.

Good for readers who want: a classic, a coming-of-age story, and a story about justice.

3 About Harper Lee

1926–2016

Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). An earlier draft of Mockingbird, set at a later date, Go Set a Watchman, was published in July 2015 as a sequel.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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