Harper Lee介绍

Harper Lee

Lee on November 5, 2007

Born

Nelle Harper Lee

April 28, 1926

Monroeville, Alabama

, U.S.

Died

February 19, 2016(aged 89)

Monroeville, Alabama, U.S.

Pen name

Harper Lee

Occupation

Novelist

Nationality

American

Period

1960

–

2016

Genre

Literature, fiction

Literary movement

Southern Gothic

Notable works

To Kill a Mockingbird

Go Set a Watchman

Signature

Nelle Harper Lee

(April 28, 1926

–

February 19, 2016), better known by her pen

name

Harper Lee

, was an American

novelist

widely known for

To Kill a Mockingbird

,

published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961

Pulitzer Prize

and has

become a classic of modern

American literature

. Though Lee had only published this

single book, in 2007 she was awarded the

Presidential Medal of Freedom

for her

contribution to literature.

[1]

Additionally, Lee received numerous

honorary degrees

, though

she declined to speak on those occasions. She was also known for assisting her close

friend

Truman Capote

in his research for the book

In Cold Blood

(1966).

[2]

Capote was the

basis for the character Dill in

To Kill a Mockingbird

.

[3]

The plot and characters of

To Kill a Mockingbird

are loosely based on Lee's observations

of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936,

when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards

race and class in the

Deep South

of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two

children. The novel was inspired by racist attitudes in her hometown of

Monroeville,

Alabama

.

Another novel,

Go Set a Watchman

, was written in the mid-1950s and published in July

2015 as a

To Kill a Mockingbird

's first

draft.

[4][5][6]

To Kill a Mockingbird

I never expected any sort of success with

Mockingbird

. I was hoping for a quick and

merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped

someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped

for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as

frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.

—?

Harper Lee, quoted in Newquist, 1964

[14]

In 1949, Lee moved to

New York City

and took a job as an airline reservation agent,

writing fiction in her spare time.

[8]

Having written several long stories, Lee found an agent

in November 1956. The following month, at

Michael Brown

's East 50th Street townhouse,

she received a gift of a year's wages from friends with a note:

your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.

[15]

Origin

In the spring of 1957, a 31-year-old Lee delivered the manuscript for

Go Set a

Watchman

to her agent to send out to publishers, including the now-defunct

J. B.

Lippincott Company

, which eventually bought it.

[16]

At Lippincott, the novel fell into the

hands of Therese von Hohoff Torrey

—

known professionally as

Tay Hohoff

. Ms. Hohoff

was impressed.

recount in a corporate history of Lippincott.

[16]

But as Ms. Hohoff saw it, the manuscript

was by no means fit for publication. It was, as she described it,

anecdotes than a fully conceived novel

[16]

During the next couple of years, she led Lee

from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was

retitled

To Kill a Mockingbird

.

[16]

Li

ke many unpublished authors, Ms. Lee was unsure of her talents. ―I was a first

-time

writer, so I did as I was told,‖ Ms. Lee said in a statement in 2015 about the evolution

from

Watchman

to

Mocki ngbird

.

[16]

Ms. Hohoff offers a more detailed characterization of

the process in the Lippincott corporate history: ―After a couple of false starts, the story

-line,

interplay of characters, and fall of emphasis grew clearer, and with each revision

—

there

were many minor changes as the story grew in strength and in her own vision of it

—

the

true stature of the novel became evident.‖ (In 1978, Lippincott was acquired by

Harper &

Row

, which became

HarperCollins

, publisher of

Watchman.

)

There appeared to be a natural give and take between author and editor. ―When she

disagreed with a suggestion, we talked it out, sometimes for hours,‖ Ms. Hohoff wrote.

―And sometimes she came around to my way of thinking, sometimes I to hers, sometimes

th

e discussion would open up an entirely new line of country.‖

[16]

As for her relationship with Ms. Lee, it’s clear that Ms. Hohoff provided more than just

editorial guidance. One winter night, as Charles J. Shields recounts in

Mockingbird: A

Portrait of Harper Lee,

Ms. Lee threw her manuscript out her window and into the snow,

before calling Ms. Hohoff in tears. ―Tay told her to march outside immediately and pick up

the page

s,‖ Mr. Shields writes.

[16]

When the novel was finally ready, the author opted to use the name

than risk having her first name Nellebe misidentified as

[17]

Published July 11, 1960,

To Kill a Mockingbird

was an immediate bestseller and won

great critical acclaim, including the

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

in 1961. It remains a

bestseller, with more than 30 million copies in print. In 1999, it was voted

the Century

Library Journal

.

[18]

Autobiographical details in the novel

Like Lee, the tomboy Scout of the novel is the daughter of a respected small-town

Alabama attorney. Scout's friend, Dill, was inspired by Lee's childhood friend and

neighbor,

Truman Capote

;

[10]

Lee, in turn, is the model for a character in Capote's first

novel,

Other Voices, Other Rooms

, published in 1948. Although the plot of Lee's novel

involves an unsuccessful legal defense similar to one undertaken by her attorney father,

the 1931 landmark

Scottsboro Boys

interracial rape case may also have helped to shape

Lee's social conscience.

[19]

While Lee herself downplayed autobiographical parallels in the book, Truman Capote,

mentioning the character Boo Radley in

To Kill a Mockingbird

, described details he

considered autobiographical:

Other Voices, Other Rooms

I had

that same man living in the house that used to leave things in the trees, and then I took

that out. He was a real man, and he lived just down the road from us. We used to go and

get those things out of the trees. Everything she wrote about it is absolutely true. But you

see, I take the same thing and transfer it into some

Gothic

dream, done in an entirely

different way.

[20]

After

To Kill a Mockingbird

Middle years

After completing

To Kill a Mockingbird

, Lee accompanied Capote to

Holcomb, Kansas

, to

assist him in researching what they thought would be an article on a small town's

response to the murder of a farmer and his family. Capote expanded the material into his

best-selling book,

In Cold Blood

, published in 1966.

From the time of the publication of

To Kill a Mockingbird

until her death in 2016, Lee

granted almost no requests for interviews or public appearances and, with the exception

of a few short essays, published nothing further, until 2015. She did work on a follow-up

novel

—

The Long Goodbye

—

but eventually filed it away unfinished.

[21]

During the

mid-1980s, she began a factual book about an Alabama serial murderer, but also put it

aside when she was not satisfied.

[21]

Her withdrawal from public life prompted unfounded

speculation that new publications were in the works.