She submitted a manuscript to Lippincott in 1957. While editors criticized the book's structure, suggesting it seemed to be a series of short stories strung together, they recognized the novel's promise and encouraged Lee to rewrite it. With the help of her editor, Tay Hohoff, Lee reworked the material, and
To Kill a Mockingbird was finally published in July 1960.
To Kill a Mockingbird is narrated by Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, a woman recollecting her childhood years between six and nine. Scout lives with her brother, Jem, four years older than she, and her lawyer father, Atticus, in the small Alabama town of Maycomb during the 1930s. During the three years covered by the novel, Scout and Jem gain a better understanding of the adult world.
A key incident in their maturing is Atticus's legal defense of Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white girl named Mayella Ewell, daughter of evil Bob Ewell. In the months preceding the trial, Scout and Jem suffer the taunts of classmates and neighbors who object to Atticus's "lawing for niggers." As the trial nears, the situation intensifies, and a threatened lynching of Robinson is narrowly averted by the innocent intervention of Jem and Scout.
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