Eight Never-Before-Seen Short Stories by 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Author Harper Lee Will Be Published This Year
After Lee’s death in 2016, typescripts of her early fiction were discovered in her New York apartment. The previously unseen drafts offer new insights into her creative development
Eli Wizevich
History Correspondent
March 6, 2025 3:27 p.m.
Harper Lee on the porch of her parents' home in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1961 Don Uhrbrock / Contributor
Years before Harper Lee became a household name, literary journals and magazines rejected her attempts at fiction. After To Kill a Mockingbird launched the Alabama-born author to international fame, scholars assumed that those early stories were lost in slush piles or destroyed.
But Lee never let the stories disappear. Following her death in 2016, her executor discovered her earliest attempts at fiction stashed in her New York City apartment, according to the New York Times’ Alexandra Alter.
Now, for the first time ever, readers will finally have the chance to read eight of Lee’s early short stories, along with another eight nonfiction pieces previously published elsewhere, in the forthcoming collection The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays. According to a statement from Harper, an imprint of the publishing house HarperCollins, the collection will debut on October 21, 2025.
“As a member of Harper Lee’s surviving family, I know I speak for all of us in saying that we’re delighted that these essays, and especially the short stories, which we knew existed but were only recently discovered, have been found and are being published,” Edwin Conner, Lee’s nephew, says in the statement.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/eight-never-before-seen-short-stories-by-to-kill-a-mockingbird-author-harper-lee-will-be-published-this-year-180986165/
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