Harper Lee -0

Harper Lee -0

1. Early LIfe

   • Born: April 28th, 1926. In Monroeville Alabama
   • Full name is Nelle Harper Lee
   • Her father was a lawyer who also served in the state legislature from 1926–1938.
   • As a child, Lee was a tomboy and a precocious reader.
   • For most of Lee's life, her mother suffered from mental illness, rarely leaving the house. It is believed that she may have had bipolar disorder.

2. Education

   • After she attended public school in Monroeville she attended Huntingdon College, a private school for women in Montgomery for a year and then transferred to the University of Alabama.
   • After graduation, Lee studied at Oxford University. She returned to the University of Alabama to study law but withdrew six months before graduation.

3. Courier

   • In 1959, she finished the manuscript for her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird.
   • In high school, Lee developed an interest in English literature. After graduating in 1944, she attended the all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery. Lee stood apart from the other students—she couldn't have cared less about fashion, makeup or dating. Instead, she focused on her studies and writing. Lee was a member of the literary honor society and the glee club.
   • Pursuing her interest in writing, Lee contributed to the school's newspaper and its humor magazine, the Rammer Jammer, eventually becoming the publication's editor.
     • In her junior year, Lee was accepted into the university's law school, which allowed students to work on law degrees while still undergraduates. The demands of her law studies forced her to leave her post as Rammer Jammer editor.
       • Returning to her law studies that fall, Lee dropped out after the first semester. She soon moved north to follow her dreams to become a writer.

4. start of new life as a writer

   • In 1949, a 23-year-old Lee arrived in New York City. She struggled for several years, working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and for the British Overseas Air Corp (BOAC).
     • While in the city, Lee was reunited with old friend Capote, one of the literary rising stars of the time. She also befriended Broadway composer and lyricist Michael Martin Brown and his wife Joy.
   • In 1956, the Browns gave Lee an impressive Christmas present—to support her for a year so that she could write full time. She quit her job and devoted herself to her craft.
     • The Browns also helped her find an agent, Maurice Crain. He, in turn, was able to get publisher J.B. Lippincott Company interested in her work. Working with editor Tay Hohoff, Lee worked on a manuscript set in a small Alabama town, which eventually became her novel To Kill a Mockingbird.