Harper Lee

Videos of Author

Resources

• Scottsboro Boys Trials: A website dedicated to the historical inspiration for the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Essays by Harper Lee

• Love — in Other Words (Vogue, 1961) -- "Love purifies," Harper Lee wrote, "Suffering never purified anybody..."

• Christmas to Me (McCalls, 1961) -- The essay opens, "To a displaced Southerner, Christmas in New York can be rather a melancholy occasion, not because the scene is strange to one far from home, but because it is familiar..."

• When Children Discover America (McCalls, 1965) -- "I do not think," wrote Lee, "the youngest or even the most jaded citizen could go to Washington and through the Capitol or the Smithsonian Institution without having the feeling of yes, we are something; yes, we do have a history."

• Romance and High Adventure (Alabama History and Heritage Festival, 1983) -- "We Americans like to put our culture into disposable containers. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way we treat our past."

• A Letter from Harper Lee (O Magazine, 2006) -- Of e-books she wrote, "Some things should happen on soft paper, not cold metal."