Description
In her pulitzer-prize winning novel, Harper Lee tells the story of a young Alabama girl living in Maycomb which
was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
Originally published in 1960, this edition is complete and unabridged. It is part of Hewitt’s Grade-8 Lightning Literature program. From our Guide by Elizabeth Kamath:
Harper Lee is a very unusual author. She was able to write To Kill a Mockingbird in part because of a gift from two friends of hers—enough money to quit work for a year. It was during that year that she wrote the rough draft of this novel. To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. It was popular upon publication and is still popular today. In fact, in some polls it has been voted the Best Novel of the Century. That makes it all the more surprising that this was Lee’s first novel.
