‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ author Harper Lee abuse allegations ‘unfounded’
AN INVESTIGATION has closed into whether celebrated novelist Harper Lee was coerced into publishing a long-awaited second book.
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AN ALABAMA government department has closed an investigation of whether celebrated novelist Harper Lee was coerced or abused into publishing a long-awaited second book.
A spokesman for the Alabama Department of Human Resources says a report has been sent to Lee’s lawyer, Tonja Carter.
He refused to give further details on the grounds of confidentiality, but The Wall Street Journal reported the inquiry concluded the allegations were “unfounded.”
More than half a century after the runaway success of her first book, To Kill a Mockingbird, HarperCollins announced in February that Lee would publish a new novel, Go Set a Watchman.
The announcement set the literary world alight and delighted Lee’s millions of fans, but quickly degenerated into rampant speculation about whether the 88-year-old recluse was of sound mind.
Lee wrote Go Set a Watchman in the mid-1950s but the manuscript was recently rediscovered by her lawyer.
Deaf and suffering from poor eyesight, Lee has lived since 2007 in a nursing home in Monroeville, Alabama.
In February, Mr Carter released a statement telling fans that Lee was “happy as hell” about the new book.
Watchman is already a No 1 bestseller at online bookstore Amazon, where the 304-page hardback is available for pre-order before its July 14 release.
To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize for its tale of racial injustice in the Great Depression-era south.
Published in 1960, it has been translated into more than 40 languages, as well as adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Gregory Peck.
Originally published as ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ author Harper Lee abuse allegations ‘unfounded’
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