‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ author Harper Lee dead at 89

On July 11, 1960, Lee’s novel was published by Lippincott with critical and commercial success.

Lee grew up in Monroeville, which was the inspiration for the fictional town of Maycomb, where “Mockingbird” took place.

Nelle Harper Lee, the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book To Kill a Mockingbird, has died at the age of 89.

Multiple sources in Harper Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Alabama are reporting that the author passed away at 4 a.m. Friday morning. The couple funded her for a year while she wrote and revised her manuscript several times. She returned to the best-seller list in 2015 with the publication of “Go Set a Watchman”.

Mockingbird is among the most treasured novels in history, with worldwide sales topping 40 million copies.

Lee had a stroke in 2007 and recently moved into an assisted living facility after her older sister, Alice, died.

Harper Lee was a childhood friend of Truman Capote.

Lee attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery, AL, before transferring to the University of Alabama where she began working on a law degree.