Who Wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, When, and How Long Is It?
Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. J. B. Lippincott published it on July 11, 1960, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the next year. It has 31 chapters in two parts.
It was Lee's first novel. Her only other book, Go Set a Watchman, came out in 2015 and was an earlier draft of the same story.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author | Harper Lee (Nelle Harper Lee) |
| First published | July 11, 1960, J. B. Lippincott |
| Prize | Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1961 |
| Editor | Tay Hohoff |
| Length | 31 chapters in two parts; first edition 281 pages |
| Words | About 100,000 (estimates vary) |
| Audiobook | About 12 hours |
Who was Harper Lee?
Harper Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1926, and died in 2016. Maycomb, the small Alabama town in the novel, is generally read as a version of her hometown. She was 34 when her first novel appeared.
↑ Back to the topWhen was To Kill a Mockingbird published?
J. B. Lippincott & Co. published the book in the United States on July 11, 1960. Lippincott's editors warned Lee that she would probably sell only a few thousand copies. Instead it became an immediate bestseller, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, and has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.
↑ Back to the topHow did the book get its title?
Lee first wrote a manuscript called Go Set a Watchman. Her editor at Lippincott, Tay Hohoff, saw promise in it but not a finished novel, and worked with Lee for more than two years on rewrites. The title went from Go Set a Watchman to Atticus, and Lee finally chose To Kill a Mockingbird, because the story had grown beyond a portrait of one character.
That earlier draft was published in 2015 as Go Set a Watchman. It is set about twenty years after the events of Mockingbird and is not a continuation of the story.
↑ Back to the topHow many pages, chapters and words does it have?
The novel has 31 chapters in two parts: Part One has 11 chapters and Part Two has 20. The first edition ran to 281 pages; later editions run longer, for example 336 pages in the 40th-anniversary hardcover.
Most estimates put the text at around 100,000 words, which is about 6 hours of reading at an average pace. The full audiobook, read by Sissy Spacek, runs about 12 hours and 17 minutes.
↑ Back to the topMore about To Kill a Mockingbird
This guide covers the book only. Film and TV versions differ in places.