Harper Lee's Novels Reading Order

Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman (2015) is the novel she wrote before To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) — the original manuscript in which Scout Finch (Jean Louise) returns to Maycomb as an adult from New York to visit her father Atticus, only to find that the man she idolized holds racial views that horrify her. It was discovered in a safe-deposit box and published amid controversy about whether Lee, then 88 and in poor health, had genuinely consented to its publication. Regardless of the circumstances, Go Set a Watchman is a significant literary document — the earlier draft from which To Kill a Mockingbird was developed through editorial work with Tay Hohoff at Lippincott, and a counterpoint to its famous predecessor that shows both what Lee was originally thinking and how dramatically the editorial process transformed her novel.