Karshi state university

Actuality of the qualification paper: His novels are page-turner. The reason for that may be student’s interest to the novels and other writings of that period. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the best-known and most widely read books in the United States. Since its publication in 1960, the novel has been translated into some 40 languages and has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. A staple on American high- school reading lists, the novel has inspired numerous stage and film adaptations, the most notable of which was the 1962 film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. Lee’s novel continues to resonate with audiences today. In this kind of investigations students learn socio political issues of that period
The aim of course work: to study and analyze of the life of Harper Lee and his works
Task of the work:
-to make a survey of author's life
-to characterize what author created
-to make a research what kind of people lives and events the author described in his works
-to analyze sample of author’s works
Theorical and practical value of the work: The results of this work can be used Implemented while researching the theme for writing some scientific articles and essays. They also can be used in lessons of English literature.
The structure of the course work : The course work contains an introduction, two chapters and conclusion .It contains 28 pages pages

Chapter I. Harper Lee as a major literary figure


Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabamawhere she grew up as the youngest of four children of Frances Cunningham (née Finch) and Amasa Coleman Lee.Her parents chose her middle name, Harper, to honor pediatrician Dr. William W. Harper, of Selma, who saved the life of her sister Louise.Her first name, Nelle, was her grandmother's name spelled backwards and the name she used, Harper Lee, was primarily her pen name. Lee's mother was a homemaker; her father, a former newspaper editor, businessman and lawyer, also served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. Through her father, she was a relative of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and a member of the prominent Lee family. Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father, and son, were hangedLee had three siblings: Alice Finch Lee Louise Lee Conner (1916–2009), and Edwin Lee Although Nelle remained in contact with her significantly older sisters throughout their lives, only her brother was close enough in age to play with, though she grew closer with Truman Capote (1924–1984), who visited family in Monroeville during the summers from 1928 until 1934.While enrolled at Monroe County High School, Lee developed an interest in English literature, in part because teacher Gladys Watson became her mentor. After graduating from high school in 1944,like her eldest sister Alice Finch Lee, Nelle attended the then all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery for a year, then transferred to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where she studied law for several years. Nelle Lee also wrote for the university newspaper and a humor magazine, but to her father's great disappointment, left one semester before completing the credit hours necessary for a degree.In the summer of 1948, Lee attended a summer school program, "European Civilisation in the Twentieth Century", at Oxford University in England, financed by her father, who hoped—in vain, as it turned out—that the experience would make her more interested in her legal studies in TuscaloosaTo Kill a MockingbirdI never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers, but at the same time I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected. Harper Lee, quoted in Newquist, 1964In 1949, Lee moved to New York City and took jobs — first at a bookstore, then as an airline reservation agent — while writing in her spare time. After publishing several long stories, Lee found an agent in November 1956; Maurice Crain would become a friend until his death decades later. The following month, at Michael Brown's East 50th Street townhouse, friends gave Lee a gift of a year's wages with a note: "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas."The first edition cover for To Kill a MockingbirdIn the spring of 1957, a 31-year-old Lee delivered the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman to Crain to send out to publishers, including the now-defunct J. B. Lippincott Company, which eventually bought it.At Lippincott, the novel fell into the hands of Therese von Hohoff Torrey—known professionally as Tay Hohoff. Hohoff was impressed. "[T]he spark of the true writer flashed in every line", she would later recount in a corporate history of Lippincott. But as Hohoff saw it, the manuscript was by no means fit for publication. It was, as she described it, "more a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel"During the next couple of years, she led Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was retitled To Kill a Mockingbird.Meanwhile, interest in racial relations in the South had increased nationally as the U.S. Supreme Court had issued its school desegregation decisions in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and the civil rights movement as well as the segregationist "massive resistance" strategy made headlines across the nation.Like many unpublished authors, Lee was unsure of her talents. "I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told," Lee said in a statement in 2015 about the evolution from Watchman to Mockingbird.Hohoff later described the process in Lippincott's corporate history: "After a couple of false starts, the story-line, interplay of characters, and fall of emphasis grew clearer, and with each revision—there were many minor changes as the story grew in strength and in her own vision of it—the true stature of the novel became evident." (In 1978, Lippincott was acquired by Harper & Row, which became HarperCollins which published Watchman in 2015] Hohoff described the give and take between author and editor: "When she disagreed with a suggestion, we talked it out, sometimes for hours" ...

In March 2005, Lee arrived in Philadelphia—her first trip to the city since signing with publisher Lippincott in 1960—to receive the inaugural ATTY Award for positive depictions of attorneys in the arts from the Spector Gadon & Rosen Foundation.[43] At the urging of Peck's widow, Veronique Peck, Lee traveled by train from Monroeville to Los Angeles in 2005 to accept the Los Angeles Public Library Literary Award.[44] She also attended luncheons for students who have written essays based on her work, held annually at the University of Alabama.[35][45] On May 21, 2006, she accepted an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame, where graduating seniors saluted her with copies of To Kill a Mockingbird during the ceremony.[46]On May 7, 2006, Lee wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey (published in O, The Oprah Magazine in July 2006) about her love of books as a child and her dedication to the written word: "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books."[47]While attending an August 20, 2007, ceremony inducting four members into the Alabama Academy of Honor, Lee declined an invitation to address the audience, saying: "Well, it's better to be silent than to be a fool."[48][49]Lee being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, November 5, 2007

On November 5, 2007, George W. Bush presented Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest civilian award in the United States and recognizes individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors"In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Lee the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given by the United States government for "outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts"In a 2011 interview with an Australian newspaper, Rev. Dr. Thomas Lane Butts said Lee was living in an assisted-living facility, was using a wheelchair, partially blind and deaf, and suffering from memory loss. Butts also shared that Lee told him why she never wrote again: "Two reasons: one, I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say, and I will not say it again."

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