New Harper Lee Book Already A Million Seller

“First-week sales of “Go Set a Watchman” have far exceeded our expectations”, said Brian Murray, the president and chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers, in a statement, according to The New York Times.

LONDON-July 20, 2015-Many longtime fans of the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” were no doubt broken hearted at the news that Atticus Finch-the noble and just lawyer who defends an African-American man in a rape trial involving a white woman-would be cast as a racist in the long-awaited followup, “Go Set a Watchman“. The book went on sale July 14, and the sales figures reflect all preorders and all formats, including the audiobook edition.

An historic literary event: the publication of a newly discovered novel, the earliest known work from Harper Lee, the beloved, bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. Other books have sold much faster: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published in the United States by Scholastic in 2007, sold 8.3m copies in its first 24 hours. HarperCollins has increased an initial print run of 2 million copies for “Watchman” to 3.3 million. The book’s popularity is also helping the publisher sell “Mockingbird”, the second-most bought book on Amazon.com Inc.’s list on Monday, one spot behind “Watchman”. Critics and readers were startled to find the heroic Atticus of “Mockingbird” disparaging blacks and condemning the Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw segregation in public schools.