Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville Alabama. Monroeville is a city
with about 7,000 people.
She is the youngest of four children. Her parents names were Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances
Finch Lee (notice her fathers name includes Francis and Finch, both characters in the book). She attended Huntingdon
College from 1944 to 1945. After that she studied law at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949. In the 1950s
she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and BOAC in New York City.
To better focus on writing, she quit this job and moved into an apartment in New York City.
Due to her father's illness, she divided her time between New York and Alabama. In 1957, she submitted "To Kill a Mockingbird" to
the J. B. Lippincott Company. She was told that her story had too many short stories involved in it and she should rewrite
it. For two and a half more years she re wrote it with her editor, Tay Hohoff. Finally in 1960, "To Kill a Mockingbird"
became her first published book. In 1961 she had two articles published: "Love - In Other Words" and "Christmas
In June of 1966, Harper Lee was one of two people named by President Johnson to the National
Council of Arts.