An unseen collection of 38 letters, written between 2005 and 2010 from the intensely private author Harper Lee who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, were sold at auction last Thursday.
When Lee died in 2016 at the age of 89, she hadn’t given a substantive interview in decades. However, her letters now provide a fascinating insight into her thoughts on things like religion, memories of her family, and her hopes for a black female American President in the future.
In the letters, written to Lee’s friend Felice Itzkoff, affectionately known as “Clipper” she shares her skepticism about Christianity. In another letter from 2008, she discusses the frustrations of aging, writ- ing, “I haven’t got bat sense — I blame drugs, but it’s probably senility…. Everybody here is in dementia of
some sort.” On Jan. 20, 2009, she refers to the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the conversation between the actor Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch in the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and President Lyndon B. Johnson, in which they discussed the possibility of a black president.
Her private letters also reveal her sensitivity to what was being said about her when she references Eudora Welty’s criticism directed at her for publishing (at the time) just one book, “I once heard her say something about ‘Harper Lee’s case’ – talking about one-novel writers. I could have told her: as it turned out, I didn’t need to write another one – much xxx, H.”
The bidding for the collection opened at $10,000 and sold for $12,500.
