Harper Lee's working titles for
To Kill a Mockingbird were "Go Set a Watchman" and "Atticus," before she finalized the title. Set in the 1930s,
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel about the maturity of three children, as well as the racial prejudices that affected them and the small town in Alabama in which they lived. The novel was published in July 1960 by the J.B. Lippincott Company, and it received widespread critical acclaim. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. The book was adapted into a movie in 1962, and it received eight Academy Award nominations, winning in four of the categories. Considered by many as a timeless classic,
To Kill a Mockingbird is hailed as one of the best coming-of-age novels ever written, and it appeals to both the young and old. The Presidential Medal of Freedom,
which is awarded to someone who has made "an especially meritorious contribution" to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, or for their accomplishments in the areas of culture or other significant public or private endeavours," was bestowed upon Lee in 2007 from President George W. Bush.
Though Harper Lee states that
To Kill a Mockingbird is not an autobiography of her childhood, she does admit that the story contains some autobiographical aspects from her early life.
For example:
- Scout is based off of Lee herself as a child, who was a tomboy with older siblings.
- Atticus was modeled after Lee's father, who was also a lawyer who took a case similar to that of Tom Robinson.
- Calpurnia was inspired by an African American housekeeper who worked at Harper Lee's house as a child.
- Dill was influenced by Truman Capote, who was Lee's neighbor as a child. Like Dill, Capote had a knack for imagining stories and more advanced maturity level.
- The Radleys were contributed to a family on Lee's street whose house was always was boarded up. They had a son who was a forced recluse for twenty-four years after he got into trouble with the law.
