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Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, dead at 89

Harper Lee, who wrote one of America's most enduring literary classics, To Kill a Mockingbird, and surprised readers 55 years later with the publication of a second book about the same characters, died at the age of 89 on Friday.

A statement from Tonja Carter, Lee's attorney in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, said Lee had "passed away early this morning in her sleep" and that the death was unexpected.

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Author Harper Lee dead at 89

Harper Lee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1960 novel To Kill A Mockingbird, has died in Monroeville, Alabama.

For decades it had appeared that Lee's sole literary output would be To Kill a Mockingbird and the July 2015 publication of Go Set a Watchman was a surprising and somewhat controversial literary event.

In the first book, Atticus Finch was the adored father of the young narrator Scout and a lawyer who nobly but unsuccessfully defended a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman. But in Watchman, an older Atticus had racial views that left the grown-up Scout greatly disillusioned.

Lee reportedly had written Go Set a Watchman first but, at the suggestion of a wise editor, set it aside to tell a tale of race in the South from the child's point of view in the 1930s.

For many years, Lee, a shy woman with an engaging Southern drawl who never married, lived quietly and privately, always turning down interview requests. She alternated between living in a New York apartment and Monroeville, where she shared a home with her older sister, lawyer Alice Lee.

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After suffering a stroke and enduring failing vision and hearing, she spent her final years in an assisted living residence in Monroeville.

"When I saw her just six weeks ago, she was full of life, her mind and mischievous wit as sharp as ever," her agent, Andrew Nurnberg, said in a statement. "She was quoting Thomas More and setting me straight on Tudor history."

Spencer Madrie, owner of the Ol' Curiosities & Book Shoppe dedicated to the work of Lee and other Southern authors, said Monroeville was in a sombre mood as word of Lee's death spread.

"You wish somebody like that could go on forever and be this lifelong legend," he said. "You don't ever consider somebody like that passing, even though her legacy will last for generations after."

Lee's state of mind would become an issue when plans were announced to publish Go Set a Watchman last year. Some friends said that after the death of her sister Alice, who handled Harper's affairs, lawyer Tonja Carter had manipulated Lee to approve publication.

Discovered manuscript 

Carter had said she came across the Watchman manuscript while doing legal work for Lee in 2014 and an investigation by Alabama state officials found there was no coercion in getting Lee's permission to publish.

Lee's literary output had been a matter of speculation for decades before Go Set a Watchman. She acknowledged she could not top the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mockingbird but friends said she had worked for years on at least two other books before abandoning them.

A family friend, the Reverend Thomas Lane Butts, told an Australian interviewer Lee had said she did not publish again because she did not want to endure the pressure and publicity of another book and because she had said all that she wanted to say.

Lee essentially quit giving interviews in 1964 and rarely made public appearances but in November 2007 went to the White House to accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, who called her book "a gift to the entire world."

She also regularly attended an annual luncheon at the University of Alabama to meet with the winners of a high school essay contest on the subject of her book.

Changing racial views

Nelle Harper Lee was born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, the youngest of four children of A.C. and Frances Finch Lee and a descendant of Civil War General Robert E. Lee. Like Scout, Lee grew up a tomboy.

Lee had studied law at the University of Alabama but, six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York in the early 1950s to pursue a literary career while working as an airline reservation clerk.

In 1956 friends Michael and Joy Brown gave Lee a special Christmas gift, a year of financial support so she could work full time on To Kill a Mockingbird.

The book was published in 1960, shortly after the dawn of the US civil rights movement, and would sell an estimated 30 million copies. It would become required reading in many American schools but the American Library Association said it was frequently challenged by those who did not like its subject matter.

Lee also played a key role in researching another great American book by Truman Capote, her childhood friend and the inspiration for the frail, precocious Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 1959 she accompanied Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, to work on In Cold Blood, the chilling account of the murders of a farming family. Her mannerly, down-home approach undoubtedly smoothed the way for the flamboyant Capote.

There was speculation that Capote helped her write To Kill a Mockingbird but in his 2006 biography, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, Charles J. Shields disputed that. He also said Lee's contribution to Capote's In Cold Blood was greater than believed.

Lee's sister said the authors eventually fell out because Capote was jealous of Lee's Pulitzer.

The movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird also became an American classic. It won the Academy Award for best picture in 1963 while Gregory Peck, who played Atticus, was named best actor and screenwriter Horton Foote won for his adaptation of the book.

In 2006 Lee wrote a piece for O magazine about developing a childhood love of books, even though they were scarce in Monroeville.

"Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books," she wrote.

Seven facts about Harper Lee 

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird became one of the most beloved books in US literary history. Here are seven facts about Lee, who died at the age of 89:

* She went by Harper, her middle name, because she was afraid her first name, Nelle, would be mispronounced as "Nellie," not "Nell."

* Lee based the To Kill a Mockingbird character Dill on childhood friend Truman Capote, who in turn used her as the basis for a character in his Other Voices, Other Rooms.

* To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, but Conrad Richter's The Waters of Kronos beat her out for the National Book Award.

* Lee's fans were stunned to learn 55 years after publication of the novel of a long-stashed manuscript written before To Kill a Mockingbird and even more stunned that Atticus, the hero of the first book, was portrayed as a segregationist in Go Set a Watchman. Atticus was based on Lee's father.

* Lee and actor Gregory Peck became friends during the filming of To Kill a Mockingbird. She remained close to his family and Peck's grandson, Harper Peck Voll, is named for her.

* To Kill a Mockingbird created a cottage industry in her hometown, Monroeville, Alabama, with a museum dedicated to it, although Lee filed a lawsuit claiming it was selling unlicensed merchandise, such as To Kill a Mockingbird beverage coasters.

* Actresses Sandra Bullock (Infamous in 2006) and Catherine Keener (Capote in 2005) portrayed Lee in movies about the writing of Capote's In Cold Blood.

Reuters