to kill a mockingbird 1960 first edition

This was, after all, Alabama, and attitudes to race and class were strongly prejudiced, but what happened after the verdict was beyond anyone’s expectations. When Atticus took on the defence of a black man, he warned his children that some unpleasantness could well be the result. Their fascination was frowned upon by their father, Atticus, a lawyer elected to the state legislature. To Scout, her almost-thirteen-year-old brother, Jem (Jeremy Atticus Finch) and their summer vacation friend, Dill (Charles Parker Harris), Boo Radley was an almost mythical creature who remained hidden in the Radley house and was the subject of much childhood speculation. Almost-nine-year-old Scout (Jean Louise) Finch had never set eyes on her reclusive neighbour, Boo (Arthur) Radley, until the night of Halloween, 1935. To Kill a Mockingbird is the first published novel by American author, Harper Lee. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. I could not remember when the line above Atticus’s moving finger separated into words, but I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills To Be Enacted into Laws, the diaries of Lorenzo Day - anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night. “I never deliberately learned to read…….Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces. It was named the best novel of the twentieth century by librarians across the country (Library Journal). In 2007 the film ranked twenty-fifth on the AFI's 10th anniversary list of the greatest American movies of all time. In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century. In 1995, the film was listed in the National Film Registry. It was nominated for five more Oscars including Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mary Badham, the actress who played Scout. It went on to win three Oscars: Best Actor for Gregory Peck, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, and Best Screenplay for Horton Foote. Made into the Academy Award-winning film, directed by Robert Mulligan, starring Gregory Peck.

It has gone on to become of the best-loved classics of all time and has been translated into more than forty languages selling more than forty million copies worldwide.

The New Yorker declared it 'skilled, unpretentious, and totally ingenious'. To Kill a Mockingbird became an immediate bestseller and won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

To kill a mockingbird 1960 first edition