Students across America are undoubtedly familiar with Harper Lee, specifically through her critically acclaimed 1960 novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. Perhaps the epitome of a respectable “one-hit wonder,” Lee published Mockingbird in 1960, it immediately gained widespread critical and commercial success and was made into an award-winning movie in 1962. The social perspective on racial tensions in the Southern U.S. in Mockingbird has made Lee’s best work a classic of modern literature and a staple of English classes throughout America. Mockingbird was Lee’s only published novel until the summer of 2015, when Go Set A Watchman (a spiritual successor to Mockingbird) was released.

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville Alabama. She was the fourth child of Francis and Amasa Lee, the latter practiced law in the Alabama State Legislature and served as an influence on Atticus Finch – the most remembered character of Mockingbird. Lee spent most of her early life in Alabama, where she became friends with future author Truman Capote. The two would remain close friends until Capote’s death in 1984. Lee did not formally begin writing until 1957, when she first submitted a manuscript of Go Set A Watchman. Watchman had several components that would later be found in To Kill A Mockingbird. After Mockingbird’s release, Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961.

After quickly being brought into the spotlight, Lee virtually retired from writing for the next fifty years. Apart from the publishing of Go Set A Watchman in 2015, Lee never wrote another original piece. She died in her sleep on February 19 in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. The literary world has lost an icon and master of the art, and she will be dearly missed by readers everywhere.