Nelle Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird?

Question

Does anyone know why Nelle Harper Lee published To Kill A Mockingbird (in the 60's) under a man's name, Harper Lee? I can't find any information on this on the internet. I suspect it's something like men authors got better reactions or sold more books or something.

Answer 1

I have to take exception with the first answer. By the time Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, women had been publishing under their own names for at least a century. For example, Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, to name a few (and in reverse order) had all been published by 1961, the year Mockingbird was published.

It is more likely that she omitted her first name and used Harper as it was a family name - check geneologies. It is a Southern tradition to use the mother's last name as the child's middle name and to use it, rather than the given name to address the child. Also, it is possible she just didn't like Nelle.

Interesting ? Thanks for asking.

Answer 2

I think it's because back then, the publishers thought that people wouldn't want to read anything written by a girl, and if they did publish it under a woman's name, she wouldn't get payed very much at all...
I just don't like it! Why do woman always get...neglected. WOMAN'S RIGHTS!!!
=D

Answer 3

Yes, you're probably right. I didn't even know a woman wrote the book. Probably only a woman could have written it. A Classic and the movie is a Classic too.

Answer 4

Harper is a man's name? Coulda fooled me.