This Day in History: 1960-07-11
11 July 1960: To Kill a Mockingbird is published.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by American author, Harper Lee. Published in 1960, it was instantly successful although the topics of rape and racial inequality made it controversial and it is high on the list of novels banned from American libraries and schools. Some argue that because its pages include the word ‘nigger’, it should not be read by modern readers, while others insist that its message about fairness, legal justice for all regardless of skin colour is an important message. It is a coming of age story and its heroine’s loss of innocence is something that every child needs to know.
The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee’s observations of her family, her neighbours, and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, when she was ten years old in 1936 during the days of Jim Crow segregation. Despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality, the novel is renowned for its warmth and humor.
The book was an immediate success and Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. The influence of To Kill a Mockingbird has never faded in the years since its release and the book has now sold tens of millions of copies. In 1962 she helped with the adaption of the book into an Oscar-winning film starring Gregory Peck and Robert Duvall as the elusive Boo Radley.
In 2007, Lee received the highest civilian award in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2010 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given by the United States government for “outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts”.
In her later years, Harper Lee preferred a quiet, anonymous existence dividing her time between Monroeville and New York. She enjoyed reading Jane Austen, Charles Lamb, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
When asked why she never wrote another book. She replied, “When you have a hit like that, you can’t go anywhere but down.” Harper Lee died in her sleep on the morning of 19 February 2016, aged 89.
Susannah Fullerton: To Kill A Mockingbird