New collection of stories from Harper Lee set to be released in October
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Harper Lee is one of the most prestigious names in Alabama history and is back in the spotlight this week.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author from Monroeville who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird died in 2016 but some of her previously unseen work will be released to the public later this year, according to a recent press release from Harper Collins Publishers.
The publishing company said it has acquired the rights to The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays by Lee. The collection is scheduled to be published Oct. 21.
The Land of Sweet Forever
The Land of Sweet Forever contains eight short stories written before Harper Lee began focusing her work on To Kill a Mockingbird, during a period when Lee was submitting her short fiction to journals and periodicals.
“From the Alabama schoolyards of Lee’s youth and the luncheonettes and movie houses of midcentury Manhattan, to Lee’s reflections on the responsible teaching of children and a delightful account of Gregory Peck and the To Kill A Mockingbird film set, The Land of Sweet Forever broadens our understanding of Lee’s remarkable talent. The collection will prove an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Lee’s development as a writer as her craft defines itself across years and outlets before and after Go Set A Watchman and To Kill A Mockingbird—as well as a touchstone in still-vital conversations about politics, equality, travel, love, fiction, art, the American South, and what it means to lead an engaged and creative life.”
HarperCollins Publishers
The company said the typescripts of these stories were among the papers Lee left in her New York City apartment upon her death in 2016. In 2024, the Estate made the decision to publish the stories alongside eight nonfiction pieces by Lee, which appeared in a range of publications between 1961 and 2006, collected together for the first time and now brought back into the public eye.
Casey Cep, Harper Lee’s authorized biographer and the author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, will write an introduction to the collection.
“As a member of Harper Lee’s surviving family, I know I speak for all of us in saying that we’re delighted that these essays, and especially the short stories, which we knew existed but were only recently discovered, have been found and are being published. She was not just our beloved aunt, but a great American writer, and we can never know too much about how she came to that pinnacle.”
Dr. Edwin Conner, Lee’s nephew
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