For a lot of Harper Lee’s life, “To Kill a Mockingbird” stood alone as her solely main work; her first and, apparently, final novel, narrated by a voice so clear and coherent it appeared not possible that it was her solely output.
Then got here “Go Set a Watchman,” published shortly earlier than Lee’s demise and initially heralded as a sequel, however subsequently seen as extra of an early draft of her most well-known work than as a brand new, standalone novel.
So, when eight short stories by Lee had been discovered in her New York house after she died, it marked an necessary milestone. Here, lastly, was an opportunity to uncover how Lee’s distinctive voice was honed within the years earlier than she wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
These short stories will be published for the primary time on Tuesday, in a set titled “The Land of Sweet Forever,” accompanied by an introduction by Casey Cep, Lee’s biographer.
After dropping out of regulation faculty a semester away from finishing her diploma, Lee moved to New York City to pursue her lifelong dream of turning into a author.
It was throughout this time that she wrote these stories — some containing kernels of the concepts she absolutely expresses in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” others depicting life navigating New York, in accordance to an article Cep published within the Guardian on Saturday.
“I knew there were unpublished stories, I had no idea where the manuscripts of those stories were,” Lee’s nephew, Edwin Lee Conner, told the BBC.
Conner and his cousin Molly Lee each bear in mind their aunt as a “great storyteller” who would regale them with made-up stories impressed by British creator Daphne du Maurier.
“The stories that she told me, she would make them up but they all seemed to be based around, ‘It was a dark and stormy night’… It seemed to me they were always on the moor and she would just take me into the dark,” Molly Lee advised the BBC.
And on this assortment, they each see their aunt nonetheless discovering her voice as a author, albeit with glimpses of her potential.
Conner describes these stories as “apprentice stories,” which aren’t the “fullest expression of her genius — and yet there’s genius in them.”
Alongside these early sketches of stories, the gathering additionally incorporates eight essays Lee wrote after she published “To Kill a Mockingbird,” providing perception right into a author each earlier than and after she accomplished the work that outlined her profession.