Harper Lee to publish a second novel, fifty-five years after To Kill A Mockingbird.

We're incredibly excited to find out that Harper Lee is to publish a second novel this July, Go Set a Watchman.

It was written over fifty years ago, before To Kill a Mockingbird, but was put aside after the latter’s publication. It was thought to have been lost until Autumn 2014 when a friend of the author found it attached to an original typescript of Lee’s famous debut novel.

“It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort,” said Lee. “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 youn Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn’t realised it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. 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 is set during the mid-1950s and features the characters of To Kill A Mockingbird fifty years later. Scout has returned to visit her father, Atticus and fights with personal and political issues as she tries to understand her father’s attitude towards society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.

We are, it goes without saying, incredibly excited.