About The Author Part 1

Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama. Her father was a former newspaper editor and proprietor, who had served as a state senator and practiced as a lawyer in Monroeville. Lee studied law at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949, and spent a year as an exchange student in Oxford University, Wellington Square. Six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York to pursue a literary career. During the 1950s, she worked as an airline reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways. In 1959 Lee accompanied Truman Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, as a research assistant for Capote's classic 'non-fiction' novel In Cold Blood (1966).
To Kill a Mockingbird was Lee's first novel. The book is set in Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s. Atticus Finch, a lawyer and a father, defends a black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a poor white girl, Mayella Ewell. The setting and several of the characters are drawn from life - Finch was the maiden name of Lee's mother, and the character of Dill was drawn from Capote, Lee's childhood friend.

Books and Writers
by Bamber Gascoigne

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Welcome to our very own Literary Cafe!

We are well into the reading of our first book. To Kill a Mockingbird is usually an easy read, but if you're having any problems at all, please let me know. I'd like each of you to leave me a comment answering the follwing questions. Please be sure to begin with your book number so that you will receive participation credit. There are no wrong answers.


What is your impression of the book thus far? Explain
Who is your favorite character at this time? Why?

Please leave your comment by Friday July 30, 2010 at 5PM