‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Author Set to Release New Novel This Summer

It seems as though author Harper Lee has answered the prayers of all bookworms.

Lee, who authored the classic 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is set to release a sequel to the book this summer titled, Go Set a Watchman. Originally written in the mid-1950s, Lee, who was then a new writer, was persuaded by her editor to rework some of the flashback stories in the book as a novel in its own right, birthing the award-winning literature piece To Kill a Mockingbird.

“In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called Go Set a Watchman,” said the now 88-year-old author in a statement. “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 (what became To Kill a Mockingbird) from the point of view of the young Scout.”

Now, more than 50 years later, the Pulitzer Prize winner’s friend and lawyer, Tonja Carter, found a copy of the original manuscript and convinced the author to finally give it another shot at being published.

With the recent release of Selma and the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the publishing of a sequel to Lee’s first novel, which explored issues of both racism and classism, comes at a perfect time. The new book is set in Maycomb during the mid-1950s and will chronicle Scout’s return from New York to Maycomb to visit her father, Atticus.

The 304-page book is scheduled to be released on July 14 and will be Lee’s second published novel.