Harper Lee released her first and only novel in 1960: the Pulitzer Prize-winning "To Kill a Mockingbird." More than 50 years later, Lee rediscovered the novel she originally wrote about her young heroine Scout and it will be published this summer.
Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced on Tuesday that it will release the 304-page book titled "Go Set a Watchman" on July 14. Lee completed the novel in the mid-1950s, but set it aside to write "Mockingbird" and never picked it up again.
"It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel from the point of view of the young Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told," Lee said in a Harper press release.
Lee's dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter found the manuscript at a "secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,'" according to Harper.
"I hadn't realized it had survived," Lee said. "After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."
"Go Set a Watchman" picks up 20 years after "To Kill a Mockingbird." Scout returns to Maycomb, Alabama from New York to visit her father, Atticus. "She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood," according to Harper.
Lee's first book was published by J.B. Lippincott in 1960. Screenwriter Horton Foote adapted the book for big screen in 1962. The film gave Gregory Peck his only Oscar-winning role (as Atticus) and introduced legendary actor Robert Duvall, who played Boo Radley.
"I, along with millions of others around the world, always wished that Harper Lee had written another book. And what a brilliant book this is. I love 'Go Set a Watchman,' and know that this masterpiece will be revered for generations to come," said Michael Morrison, President and Publisher of HarperCollins US General Books Group and Canada.
Lee still lives in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. She has no plans to tour for her new novel.
