In 1957, when she was 31 years old, when Sputnik 1 went up and I was 16, Harper Lee submitted her first attempt at a novel to the publisher J.B. Lippincott.
Titled ‘Go Set a Watchman,’ it was set in the ’50s and opened with a woman named Jean Louise Finch returning home to Alabama. Ms. Lee’s editor found the story lacking but, seizing on flashback scenes, suggested that she write instead about her protagonist as a young girl. The result was a Pulitzer Prize-winning classic: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’
‘Go Set a Watchman’ will be published on July 14, 2015 and you can read the first chapter today or pre-order the book now.
It has undergone very little editing. “It was made clear to us that Harper Lee wanted it published as it was,” Jonathan Burnham, publisher of HarperCollins’s Harper imprint, said in a statement. “We gave the book a very light copy edit.”
To read the first chapter, go to: The Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2015
Click here to Pre-Order the book at Amazon.com: Harper Lee: Go Set A Watchman
