She struggled for several years, working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and for the British Overseas Air Corp (BOAC). In 1949, a 23-year-old Lee arrived in New York City. Photo: Donald Uhrbrock/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images She soon moved north to follow her dreams to become a writer.Īuthor Harper Lee in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama in 1961. Returning to her law studies that fall, Lee dropped out after the first semester. She went to the University of Oxford in England that summer as an exchange student.

The demands of her law studies forced her to leave her post as Rammer Jammer editor.Īfter her first year in the program, Lee began expressing to her family that writing-not the law-was her true calling. In her junior year, Lee was accepted into the university's law school, which allowed students to work on law degrees while still undergraduates. Pursuing her interest in writing, Lee contributed to the school's newspaper and its humor magazine, the Rammer Jammer, eventually becoming the publication's editor. She did make a greater attempt at a social life there, joining a sorority for a while. Transferring to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Lee was known for being a loner and an individualist. Lee was a member of the literary honor society and the glee club.

Instead, she focused on her studies and writing. Lee stood apart from the other students-she couldn't have cared less about fashion, makeup or dating. After graduating in 1944, she attended the all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery. In high school, Lee developed an interest in English literature. It is believed that she may have had bipolar disorder. For most of Lee's life, her mother suffered from mental illness, rarely leaving the house. Her father was a lawyer, a member of the Alabama state legislature and also owned part of the local newspaper. The youngest of four children, she grew up as a tomboy in a small town. Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. In July 2015, Lee published her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, which was written before To Kill a Mockingbird and portrays the later lives of the characters from her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Soon after, she helped fellow writer and friend Truman Capote compose an article for The New Yorker which would evolve into his nonfiction masterpiece, In Cold Blood. In 1959, Harper Lee finished the manuscript for her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird.

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