did Truman capote actually write "To Kill a Mockingbird" and give it to Harper Lee as a gift?

Answer 1

No. It is a popular rumour, however all the evidence points to Harper Lee as the author - the book includes many of her mannerisms, according to those who knew her, and there is no evidence - I mean obviously you can't say for sure, but it's about as substantiated as a rumour of a ghost writer for Lolita or the Harry potter books.

Answer 2

Good question. There has been a lot of speculation about this very subject. Harper Lee never did write another book, though she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for Mockingbird. There is no concrete evidence that Capote did, in fact, write the book itself, but if you ask my opinion? I'd say yes, no......

During the 1950s, she worked as an airline reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways. In 1959 Lee accompanied Truman Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, as a research assistant for Capote's classic 'non-fiction' novel In Cold Blood (1966)............Although her first novel gained a huge success, Lee did not continue her literary career, although she worked for years on a second novel and a book of nonfiction. She returned from New York to Monroeville, where she has lived with her sister Alice, avoiding interviews.
(from : http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/harperle.htm )
take a look here, its really rather interesting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote
here, also, is a bio of Capote, to refute an earlier answer, he wrote prolifically, and his ego was so large that, had he written Mockingbird, after it won the Pulitzer, he surely would have claimed it.

Answer 3

Although Capote was a great writer, he was self-centered and mean. He was jealous of Harper Lee's success and he may have started the rumors himself. He was very much into gossip, as anyone who used to watch him in TV talk shows know well. He rarely said anything good of others. The style and sensitivity of To Kill a Mockingbird is not at all Capote's writing style. Read his books and it will be obvious he could have never written such a novel. Nor was he interested in those themes.

Answer 4

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RE:
did Truman capote actually write "To Kill a Mockingbird" and give it to Harper Lee as a gift?

Answer 5

Capote probably gave his advice to Lee on the work in progress, but I doubt he wrote any of it. As an author, I am generous in helping new writers, but I would never write their book for them. This undermines their own abilities.

Some have pointed out that Harper Lee never wrote another book. That is not unusual. When a first book gets that much fame, the author rarely produces another work. How can they measure up? It can be a real curse to have a first book make such a splash.

Margaret Mitchell of "Gone with the Wind" was so overwhelmed by all the attention that she spent the rest of her life just making appearances and lectures and answering fan mail. When her husband complained that she was wasting valuable writing time, her response was she didn't want to be more famous. The one book had put too much of a strain of their lives and marriage already.

Answer 6

When Capote went to Kansas to research 'In Cold Blood', Harper Lee accompanied him, so it's conceivable he helped her write To Kill A Mockingbird. He certainly had the opportunity and motivation, because she was helping him with his research. But for him to write the whole thing and give it to her as a gift, I very much doubt. Books are huge undertakings over a number of years, and for someone to do what your question posits, is inconceivable.
That said, Harper Lee based the character of Dill in her book after
Capote. So who knows?

Answer 7

I've heard this rumor, too. While Lee's style and Capote's style are similar, if you read closely you can see that the two styles have many different characteristics.
It is probable that Lee showed her work to Capote and he helped edit it and gave her feedback on the story. This is common with writers who are also friends.

Answer 8

No.

That rumor came about because 1) Lee and Capote were childhood friends, and 2) Lee wrote the book without having written much before, and didn't write afterwards.

But there is no evidence for it, and much against. (For one thing, Capote made seem dismissive private remarks about the book, for another, Capote wrote to his aunt about reading the book before it was published. ) Even the fact that Lee didn't write another book doesn't seem so odd given the fact that after Capote finished In Cold Blood, which he was working on after Mockingbird came out, he barely wrote much else. (After In Cold Blood, which was published in 1965 but which he began researching in 1959, he published no more full length fiction or non-fiction -- just pieces.)


Listen to this NPR story about the rumor: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244492&ft=1&f=1032

Answer 9

no, but i have read in the footnotes of my copy that ms lee based dill on capote.

Answer 10

NO. I don't even know what to say about this question.