eReading Room, Paperless Research

Essential Longform: The Best Harper Lee Reads

To Kill a Mockingbird, at this point, seems almost to be the essence of literary life for American schoolchildren. It's a perennial favorite in the English classroom that, unlike many other examples of required reading, wins the lifelong affection of many readers. At the same time, its author, Harper Lee, is one of the most mysterious figures in American letters. This year, on April 28, Lee will turn 89. She will publish her second novel, Go Set a Watchman in July. As we await this much-anticipated encore, we're looking at the beloved author who told us that real courage was “when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

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To Kill a Mockingbird

Love—In Other Words” by Harper Lee
Vogue April 15, 1961 (via The Vogue Archive)
No one can quite capture Harper Lee as can the author herself, and this essay is quintessentially Lee as she drops little pearls on love, unapologetically declaring to us that “Without love, life is pointless and dangerous.”

Harper Lee's Novel Achievement” by Charles Leerhsen
Smithsonian Magazine June 2010 (via Academic Search Premier)
Journalist Charles Leerhsen visited Lee's hometown, Monroeville, Alabama on the eve of To Kill a Mockingbird's fiftieth anniversary. His bemused critique of the town's grab for touristic commercialization suggests something like an explanation for Lee's media-reticence.

Mocking Bird Call
Newsweek January 9, 1961
In 1961, Newsweek published a profile of Lee that shows the author at an angle unfamiliar to us now: the new author. Lee reveals, with some amusement, one of her favorite reader letters.

To Steal a Mockingbird?” by Mark Seal
Vanity Fair July 2013 (via Proquest Research Library)
In 2013, Seal covered Lee's lawsuit and with it a brief history of literary scandals, including that surrounding the execution of John Steinbeck’s estate. The portrait that emerges is messy and fascinating.

The Courthouse Ring” by Malcolm Gladwell
New Yorker August 10, 2009 (via Proquest Research Library)
To Kill a Mockingbird has been much praised for its treatment of issues of race. Gladwell posits that, in fact, Atticus Finch represents the limits of southern liberalism in the mid-century Southern landscape.

Why ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Won't Die” by Sam Tanenhaus
Bloomberg View February 15, 2015
In this interrofation of the enduring appeal of To Kill a Mockingbird, Sam Tanenhaus offers one explanation: the novel is not only one centered around issues of social justice but also the goodness of reading. How could the bookish of heart resist?

To Shill a Mockingbird” by Neely Tucker
Washington Post February 16, 2015
When it was announced that Lee's second novel Go Set a Watchman would be published, many speculated that an elderly Lee was taken advantage of by profit-driven vultures. Tucker investigates the claim with wit and nuance.