Never-before-seen short stories by Harper Lee will be published later this year, it has been announced.
Eight short stories written before the author started the novel that would become To Kill a Mockingbird were found in Lee’s New York City apartment after she died in 2016. They will be published in a collection titled The Land of Sweet Forever, alongside eight previously published non-fiction pieces by Lee, and an introduction by Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.
Dr Edwin Conner, Lee’s nephew, said he and his family are “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.”
The Land of Sweet Forever “broadens our understanding of Lee’s remarkable talent” and “will prove an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Lee’s development as a writer”, according to the book’s UK publisher Hutchinson Heinemann, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
The stories contain Lee’s “signature wit, that splash of darkness and those heartwarming characters for which she is beloved,” said Ailah Ahmed, Hutchinson Heinemann publishing director. “The pieces take us from Alabama to less familiar territory for Lee in Manhattan.”
Just two books by Lee were published in her lifetime, 1961 Pulitzer prize winner To Kill a Mockingbird, and Go Set a Watchman, which began life as an earlier draft of Mockingbird. There was controversy when that was published in 2015, with some raising questions about the extent of Lee’s involvement in the decision. At the time the author was 88 years old and profoundly deaf and blind.
Born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, Lee was 34 years old when To Kill a Mockingbird, loosely based on observations of her family and neighbours in Monroeville was published. Since then, it has been translated into more than 40 languages and more than 46m copies have been sold worldwide. Lee won numerous awards throughout her lifetime, including the Presidential medal of freedom. She died on February 19, 2016.
Michael Dean, a representative of the Lee Estate, said The Land of Sweet Forever will “bring us closer than ever before to the life and work of one of the 20th century’s greatest authors.”
• The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee (Cornerstone, £22). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
