One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the United States. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father -- a crusading local lawyer -- risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
Lawyer Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson -- a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Writing through the young eyes of Finch's children Scout and Jem, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in small-town Alabama during the mid-1930s Depression years. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.
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Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist. She wrote the 1960 novel *To Kill a Mockingbird* that won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. Lee received numerous accolades and honorary degrees, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 which was awarded for her contribution to literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book *In Cold Blood* (1966). Capote was the basis for the character Dill Harris in *To Kill a Mockingbird.*
