TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

BY
HARPER LEE
BACKGROUND
INFORMATION
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

 Lee was born in Monroeville Alabama in

1926.
 Her father, whom she loved and admired,
was a lawyer, like Atticus.
 A childhood friend was the writer, Truman
Capote, on whom she based the character of
Dill.
When the novel was written

 Harper Lee sent it to a publisher in 1957.

 She was told that it consisted of “just a series
of short stories”.
 She worked on improving it for another two
and a half years.
 “To kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960.
1960

 In southern states like Alabama, African Americans

did not have the same rights in law as white people.
 Schools and buses etc. were segregated.
 Registration to vote was very difficult.
 The Ku-Klux-Klan was still active and black churches
and schools were often burnt down.
 The Civil Rights Movement, led by Martin Luther
King and others, was campaigning vigorously for an
improved situation for black people.
WHEN THE NOVEL WAS SET

 Harper Lee has set the story during the years

1933 to 1935.
 She was born in 1926 so she was almost
exactly the same age as Scout is in the story.
 She lived in Monroeville, Alabama.
 Her mother’s surname before marriage was
Finch.
1930s

 The Great Depression meant that farmers suffered

great financial hardship.
 Franklin.D.Roosevelt was US president.
 Hitler had just risen to power in Germany.
 In the Southern United States there was still
resentment that they had lost the Civil War.
 Black people were regarded as little better than
slaves. They had no rights, no education and were
totally mistrusted by most white people.
SO………….

 Harper Lee set her story in the time and place of her
own childhood. (Maycomb is an invented name.)
 She based several of the characters on people she
knew.
 She was writing at a time when civil rights were the
major issue in domestic US politics.
 She set the story at a time when few white people
regarded them as any kind of issue.
 Where do you think her sympathies lay?