Harper Lee to Publish Mockingbird Sequel

Harper Lee to Publish Mockingbird Sequel

88 year old Harper Lee, famous author of ‘How to Kill a Mockingbird’ has announced a sequel to the novel which will be called ‘Go Set a Watchman’. The most interesting thing about the whole affair and what has all her fans in a fix is the fact that this sequel has been announced 55 years after the novel when Harper Lee had gone underground after the publication of her novel and announced that she will never write again. Although Ms. Lee has in the past collaborated with other authors, namely Truman Capote with whom she is great friends since childhood, she had said that she has never felt the urge to carry on writing. So what changed? As a matter of fact nothing has changed, Go Set a Watchman was written many years ago, even before to Kill a Mockingbird. Lee had to rework Go Set a Watchman into To Kill a Mockingbird on an editor’s request and then the original story was lost.

Ms. Lee thought the book was lost forever, which explains why it’s never come up to question over the years, but now the manuscript has been found in a vault clipped to a copy of the original novel and after editing and much deliberation it has been decided that 2 million copies will be printed. The work will be the first published work from the author since 1960 and the only published works in her name after To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel is set in the mid-1950s in Maycomb, Alabama, when Scout returns from New York to visit her father, Atticus.

It is announced that the novel is set to release on 14th July 2015 and has readers waiting anxiously. To Kill a Mockingbird has sold 40 million copies worldwide since its release in 1960, and is a necessary part of many required reading lists, claimed by its fans to be one of the greatest novels ever written. The novel has also won the Pulitzer Prize.

The announcement of the sequel has put the author’s hometown of Monroeville, which is also used as the setting in the novel, once again in the global spotlight. Residents say they have already noticed an increase in tourists and visitors.

The surprise announcement that a second novel by Harper Lee is to be released in the summer, more than 50 years after the first, has sent a buzz throughout the literary world.