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Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28 1926 in Monroeville Alabama. Monroeville is in southwest Alabama, about halfway between Montgomery and Mobile. She is the youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Finch Lee. She has two sisters, Alice and Louise and one brother, Edwin.

Harper Lee attended Huntingdon College 1944-45, studied law at University of Alabama 1945-49, and studied one year at Oxford University. In the 1950s she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and BOAC in New York City. In order to concentrate on writing Harper Lee gave up her position with the airline and moved into a cold-water apartment with makeshift furniture. Her father's sudden illness forced her to divide her time between New York and Monroeville.

In 1957 Miss Lee submitted the manuscript of her novel to the J. B. Lippincott Company. She was told that her novel consisted of a series of short stories strung together, and she was urged to re-write it. For the next two and a half years she re-worked the manuscript with the help of her editor, Tay Hohoff, and in 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird was published. This was her only published book. In June of 1966, Harper Lee was one of two persons named by President Johnson to the National Council of Arts.

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