Harper Lee to publish new novel, 55 years after To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee said in an announcement from her publisher, Penguin Random House, that she completed Go Set a Watchman in the mid-1950s, but set it aside after the publication of her debut and never returned to it. “It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort,” said the reclusive writer. “My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, persuaded me to write a novel from the point of view of the young Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told.”

Lee said today that she “hadn’t realised” the book had survived, “so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it”. Carter found the manuscript, said the publisher, “in a secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird”. —The Guardian.