To Kill a Mockingbird

About the Book

A novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event from her childhood in 1936, although she denied any autobiographical significance. Set in the fictional Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, the story follows Scout Finch as her father, lawyer Atticus Finch, defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman.

The novel explores themes of racial injustice, loss of innocence, courage, and the nature of good and evil through the eyes of a young girl in the American South.