This is great! It seems that Lee actually wrote this story first, but was persuaded by her editor to pull out some of the "flashback" scenes to write another book, which became "To Kill a Mockingbird". The rest of the story....

Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

An unpublished novel by Harper Lee is to finally see the light of day, 60 years after the US author put it aside to write To Kill a Mockingbird.

Go Set a Watchman, which features the character of Scout Finch as an adult, will be released on 14 July.

Lee wrote it in the mid-1950s but put it aside on the advice of her editor.

"I thought it a pretty decent effort." said Lee in a statement. "I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."

Set in the fictional southern town of Maycomb during the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman sees Scout return from New York to visit her father, the lawyer Atticus Finch.

According to the publisher's announcement: "She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood."

Lee's editor persuaded her to rework some of the story's flashback sequences as a novel in their own right, a book that became To Kill a Mockingbird.

"I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told," the author revealed.

The manuscript was discovered last autumn, attached to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird.

"I hadn't realised it [the original book] had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it," Lee continued.

"After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication."

Harper Collins plans an initial print run of two million copies.

To Kill a Mockingbird was published in July 1960 and won a Pulitzer Prize. Two years later it was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Gregory Peck.

Lee has rarely spoken to the media since the 1960s and is unlikely to do any publicity for her "new" book.

In a statement, Harper Collins' Jonathan Burnham called Go Set a Watchman "a remarkable literary event" whose "discovery is an extraordinary gift to the many readers and fans of To Kill a Mockingbird.

"Reading in many ways like a sequel to Harper Lee's classic novel, it is a compelling and ultimately moving narrative about a father and a daughter's relationship, and the life of a small Alabama town living through the racial tensions of the 1950s."

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31118355

Thanks for this post, roseanne ~ altho I don't remember specifics, I know I loved both the To Kill A Mockingbird book and movie ~ I'm going to order and reread To Kill A Mockingbird before this new book is published ~ I'm greatly looking forward to it ~

Sooz

"Reading in many ways like a sequel to Harper Lee's classic novel, it is a compelling and ultimately moving narrative about a father and a daughter's relationship, and the life of a small Alabama town living through the racial tensions of the 1950s."

The USian press is hereby forgiven for their crappy English.

oh dear. Now this.

Hometown friends say Harper Lee was manipulated into publishing second book

Multiple residents of Monroeville who have known Harper Lee for years said Wednesday that they believe the 88-year-old author does not possess sufficient mental faculties to make informed decisions about her literary career.

Suspicion has emerged about the timing of publisher HarperCollins' announcement Tuesday that her second novel, "Go Set a Watchman" is slated to be released this summer.

Four people who knew Lee to varying degrees and live in or just outside the town where Lee has lived most of her life and on which she based Maycomb -- the fictional setting of her seminal 1960 novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- told AL.com Wednesday they believe Lee's wishes for her career are not being respected.

Monroeville lawyer Tonja Carter has long represented Lee and has power of attorney over her affairs. But area residents who know the writer say that Carter has in recent years taken steps to keep her from seeing her friends and family, and become increasingly litigious on her behalf in a way that they do not believe Lee would have supported when she was younger and more alert.

Janet Sawyer, owner of the Courthouse Café in Monroeville's compact town square, said she believes that Carter has taken even greater control over her life in the short time since her protective sister, Alice Lee, died in November at the age of 103.

Sawyer believes that the decision to publish "Go Set a Watchman," described as a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," later this year was made by Carter alone. Carter did not respond to repeated telephone and email requests for comment Wednesday.

"I don't think she agreed to do it. I think it's her attorney being greedy, because Ms. Lee was a very private person who didn't like a lot of publicity," Sawyer said.

"She had a stroke several years ago and her mind is not in a condition to make these decisions, I don't think, personally. Tonja Carter doesn't allow her to see her friends anymore. She's isolated her from the world in order to manipulate her. She wants to manipulate her funds."

The restaurateur says she used to frequently serve the Lee sisters potato soup in her quirky eatery until two years ago, when the author -- whose friends call by her first name, Nelle -- stopped by for the last time, by that point requiring a wheelchair to get around.

Sawyer said that the novelist always said she didn't want her second book, which had been the subject of persistent rumors in Monroeville until its existence was confirmed this week, to be published until after she had passed away, as she wanted to avoid the limelight in the twilight of her life.

Lee currently lives in Meadows of Monroeville, a small, assisted living facility with rocking chairs on its quaint front porch and yellow siding that sits along a highway bypass on the outskirts of the town. An employee of the facility said that she could not allow anyone to see the author, leave her a message or to interview anyone who works or lives there about her without prior approval by Carter.

"Anyone who wants to see Ms. Lee needs to go through her lawyer," the employee said. "She's not seeing anyone."

A uniformed security guard posted inside the entrance of Meadows Wednesday afternoon backed up the employee's words upon further inquiry by AL.com.

"You need to leave now. You don't talk to the staff or anyone else here. Don't push me," he said.

A sleepy town with an old-fashioned feel nestled amid the hilly timberlands of southern Alabama, Monroeville's rumor mill kicked into high gear Tuesday when the news emerged that a second Harper Lee book was going to be published five decades after it was completed.

"The original manuscript of the novel was considered to have been lost until fall 2014, when Tonja Carter discovered it in a secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird," HarperCollins said in a statement Tuesday.

The publisher also issued a statement attributed to Lee.

"I hadn't realized it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it," the statement read. "After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."

Four Monroeville-area residents who have seen Lee in recent years said Wednesday that they doubted the veracity of that quote, and of the version of events it supports. Two of them spoke at length about the situation but declined to be named on the record because they did not want to be seen as meddling in Lee's affairs.

Diane Simmons, a Monroeville real estate broker who attended the town's First United Methodist Church along with Lee, said she does not believe Lee would want the book to be published this year.

"I know her health has declined," she said Wednesday. "It seems a little strange that this book would be coming out now. It seems out of character for how we've known her."

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/0 ... rt_m-rpt-2

Now I wonder. Are these people who don't really know her and just want their 15 mins? It's a small, southern town. Gossip is a way of life, dramatic and exaggerated. I feel better now with the following article.

Friend: Harper Lee was fine the day before sequel announced

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A longtime friend who visited "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee the day before the world learned she would release a sequel says she was feisty but didn't mention her new book.

Historian Wayne Flynt, a friend of the famous author, said he believes Lee was capable of giving permission for the previously unpublished manuscript to be released.

"This narrative of senility, exploitation of this helpless little old lady is just hogwash. It's just complete bunk," historian Wayne Flynt said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Flynt visited with Lee on Monday at the assisted-living facility where she lives in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. That was a day before a division of HarperCollins Publishers announced the publication of "Go Set a Watchman." The publisher said Tonja Carter, an attorney who practiced with Lee's sister, found the manuscript, which will be released in July as a sequel to the beloved novel.

She did not mention the "Mockingbird" sequel that was about to make international news during the visit.

Flynt said he believes Lee might have planned to tell him about her new novel, but didn't get the chance because he monopolized the first part of the conversation by showing her that "To Kill A Mockingbird" was still on the best-seller list more than 50 years after its first publication.

She was "deeply touched" and surprised by that fact, he said. They then talked about their families.

Flynt said Lee is capable of giving consent, although he acknowledges he doesn't know what the consent looked like. Lee is hard of hearing and uses a magnifying machine to enlarge print so she can read.

"I don't know whether it was, 'Nelle, you need to do this,' or 'Nelle, what do you think?' or 'Nelle, sign this because it's going to be financially wonderful for you.'"

"No one is ever going to know — no reporter, not me, what was said in that room," Flynt said. He added, however, that he had no reason to doubt Carter's integrity.

Lee is severely hard of hearing, which is why some people likely think that she is cognitively impaired.

"She's 88 years old," Flynt said. "She has a profound hearing problem. You have to get right next to her right ear and shout. You may have to shout it three or four times."

For example, he said, during a January visit, he saw that she was reading a collection of works by C.S. Lewis and asked her about him.

"Bluish, who's bluish?" came the reply. After, a couple of tries, Lee was able to hear him. "Oh, C.S. Lewis, the greatest Christian apologist of the twentieth century she replied and then rattled off the names of his books.

"'The Screwtape Letters.' I love it," Lee said of the satirical novel that chronicles a veteran demon's attempts to tutor a protege in the art of tempting humans. Flynt said he also once gave her a tape of Monty Python actor John Cleese narrating "The Screwtape Letters."

"She roared," Flynt said.

The news of the unexpected sequel was met with excitement in Monroeville.

Monroe County Probate Judge Greg Norris said publication of "Go Set a Watchman" helps solidify the county's reputation as the "Literary Capital of Alabama."

"I've talked to somebody who's read it; I can't say who," said Norris. "But he or she said it's unreal."

Lee remains feisty despite her age and medical ailments, Flynt said. He said a statement Carter gave to the publisher that quotes the author as saying she is "happy as hell" about the new book is "vintage Harper Lee."

Flynt said he recently told Lee a story about his 4-year-old granddaughter, also named Harper. He recalled how he pointed to a large postal truck being driven by a woman, and asked the girl if she wanted to grow up to become a mail lady. "I'm no lady. I'm Harper Flynt," he said the girl replied, with narrowed eyes.

"She roared with laughter, and said, 'You tell Harper that she's just like me. I'm no lady either,'" Flynt said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/friend ... ar-AA94OzL

I hope this is settled once and for all.....

No elder abuse found in Harper Lee case


CNN)—The march toward publication of another book by the reclusive "To Kill a Mockingbird" author continues forward.

Many people who know her have raised questions about 88-year-old Harper Lee's ability to consent to publish another book, while others have said she knows what she's doing, according to a New York Times report.

Alabama officials have found Lee wants to publish the book.

Since Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1960, she had steadfastly refused to publish another book. Lee now lives in an assisted living facility in Monroeville, Alabama, and some friends say her forgetfulness makes her unable to knowingly consent to publishing the book, "Go Set a Watchman."

After receiving an anonymous complaint of elder abuse about Lee, the state of Alabama sent investigators from the Alabama Securities Commission to talk to her and others around her.

"It was clear to our investigators that she fully understood the questions that were being asked, that she indicated she certainly wanted her book published, and she had her opinions that were voiced during the interview," Joseph Borg, the agency's director, told CNN.

"And at that point we decided that she certainly knew what was going on."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/13/living/fe ... Stories%29