The letters, spanning 1956 to 1961, offer glimpses into Lee’s life during the crucial years when she was writing “Go Set a Watchman” and writing and publishing “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and echo major themes from both novels. Now a collection of Lee’s letters acquired by Emory University helps shed light on these two versions of Atticus Finch by illuminating Lee’s relationship with her own father, long recognized as a model for the character.

Here, though, Jean Louise is a young woman who has moved to New York City and is returning to Maycomb for an annual visit that mostly serves as a reminder of how different she is from the place she once called home.Įven her father, it turns out, is not who she thought he was, as the novel reveals that the same Atticus who defended a Black man accused of rape (in this version of the story, actually winning an acquittal, unlike in “To Kill a Mockingbird”) is a member of an all-white Citizens Council formed to oppose integration. Written before “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Go Set a Watchman” is also set in Maycomb, and also explores the relationship between Atticus and Jean Louise Finch. And many reacted with something akin to grief when “Go Set a Watchman” - the only other novel known to be written by Lee - was published in 2015 after the manuscript was found in a safe-deposit box by the elderly writer’s lawyer. Generations of American readers, many of whom read “To Kill a Mockingbird” for school assignments during their own formative years, grew to love both characters. Spirited, precocious and usually clad in grubby overalls, she idolizes her father and finds in him the acceptance she is already learning can be hard to come by under the rigid social rules that govern Maycomb and the world beyond. Known by her nickname, Scout, Jean Louise Finch is Atticus’s daughter and the novel’s narrator.

For more than 50 years, Atticus Finch stood as one of the most beloved characters in American literature, the model of a principled white man who spoke out for racial justice and a gentle father who guided his children by example rather than through fear.Ī central character of Harper Lee’s acclaimed novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” published in 1960, Atticus is a lawyer in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, who earns the ire of some white townspeople - and the admiration of his young daughter - when he defends a Black man, Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white girl and facing an all-white jury.

To kill a mockingbird 1960