Harper Lee was the first child of Amasa Lee, and Frances Finch. Lee was the youngest child of four and was raised in a small rural town as a tomboy. Her father was an attorney and owned a portion of the local paper. Some people believe that her mother had bipolar disorder. She spent her entire life in her home and suffered from mental illness. Truman Capote was Lee’s close friend and a writer. Capote’s friend in high school was Lee. He was known for his sensitive personality and love of fancy clothes. Lee’s passion for writing and english literature was discovered in high school.
She graduated in 1944 and went on to Montgomery’s all-female Huntingdon College. She wasn’t interested in fashion, makeup, or dating. She was more concerned with her writing. She was also part of the literary honour society and the fun club. While she was a loner at the University of Alabama when she transferred, she joined a sorority. Lee became a journalist and editor of The Rammer Jammer humor magazine. Lee was accepted to university’s law school in her junior-year. Although she accepted the chance, she was forced to quit her job as The Rammer Jammer Editor as she continued her educations. Lee felt that writing was more important than the law after her first academic year. She spent the summer at Oxford University, England, as an exchange student. She dropped out of law school and moved to North Carolina to pursue her writing career. Lee arrived in New York in 1949. After working as a flight agent for many years, she struggled. Truman Capote (a rising author) was also a friend she made while living in New York. Joy and Michael Martin Brown, a Broadway composer and lyricist, became friends. Lee received an amazing christmas present from the browns. They gave it to her in 1956.
Lee quit her job and started writing immediately. Maurice Crain, her agent, was also a help to Lee from the Browns. Lee and Tay Hohoff worked together to create a manuscript that would eventually become Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
