Harper Lee remembered on her 100th birthday

booksApr 28, 2026281,048

April 28, 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of Harper Lee’s birth; Harper Lee authored To Kill a Mockingbird and won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She was born Nelle Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama, and modeled Atticus Finch on her father, Amasa Coleman Lee. Her given name Nelle came from her grandmother Ellen spelled backward, and she adopted the pen name Harper Lee to avoid mispronunciations. To Kill a Mockingbird and its 1962 film adaptation, which won three Oscars, remain central to American discussions of race, justice, and coming-of-age storytelling.

Readit Club

@readit.club

Today is Harper Lee’s 100th birthday. Born in a small town in Alabama, where her father worked as a lawyer. Years later, she turned the world she knew into a novel about the difficult bravery of doing what is right when the world refuses to do so. ⏰📚💙🎧📚🖋️ #books #reading #writers #HarperLee #book

7646h ago

Readit Club22

Did you like her novel To Kill a Mockingbird? “He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return… we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.” ⏰📚💙📚🖋️ #books #reading #writers #HarperLee #literature #readingcommunity

bluethru.bsky.social5

Personally, I find her original draft, published as COMES A WATCHMAN fairly recently, is the far better novel. It is more accurate and more honest. A tragedy, with Scout as the one who stands up against racism. (No spoilers here. Read it.)

Martín Roberts 🇪🇺 🇪🇸 🇬🇧 🚲3

Wow, that is worth celebrating!

Timeflies3

And after Mockingbird the second book was published which was really the first one. Interesting.

carpenter22.bsky.social2

Love that book. I have the second one, and I have to admit I still haven't read it.

Admirable Women

@admirablewomen.bsky.social

Harper Lee--#Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 𝘛𝘰 𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘔𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘥--was born #OTD in 1926. + Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2007 + Nat'l Medal of Arts, 2010 + 1962 film adaptation won 3 Oscars Lee used her first name, Nelle--her grandmother's name spelled backwards. #litsky #booksky #filmsky

A black-and-white portrait of the American novelist Harper Lee (1926–2016), famously known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. The image is styled as a slightly tilted Polaroid-style photograph with a thick white border. Lee is shown in a close-up, three-quarter view, smiling broadly with a warm, authentic expression. She has short, dark, voluminous hair and wears a dark, collared blouse paired with a striking, multi-strand white beaded necklace. In the bottom right corner, an inset image displays the iconic first-edition book cover of To Kill a Mockingbird, featuring a silhouette of a gnarled tree against a dark green and maroon background. The overall composition balances the personal, spirited vitality of the author with her monumental literary legacy.

944h ago

TeeBo

@texastob-24.bsky.social

Happy Birthday Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my favorite books 📕

337h ago

Project Gutenberg

@gutenberg.org

Happy 100th birthday to Harper Lee! Let's celebrate it. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, Lee achieved literary notoriety with a single book, then proceeded to publish sparingly. Check it out in our last newsletter: www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/ #books #literature

Truman Capote's photo portrait of Harper Lee from the back cover of the first-edition dust jacket for Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

She gazes downward, wearing a light shirt, photographed outdoors through grass and a mesh screen, creating a layered, atmospheric effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#/media/File:Photo_portrait_of_Harper_Lee_(To_Kill_a_Mockingbird_dust_jacket,_1960).jpg

288h ago

Project Gutenberg2

Thanks @rossolson.com for your wonderful text honoring her memory!

Feministory

@feministory.bsky.social

4/28/1926 — b. Harper Lee, American author. Renowned for her Pulitzer Prize winning modern American #literature classic, "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1960); assisted Truman Capote in his research for "In Cold Blood." Presidential Medal of Freedom (2007) #womenshistory #womenwriters #WriterSky #BookSky

195h ago

Dirk Puehl

@wunderkammertales.bsky.social

“They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” (To Kill a Mockingbird) Harper Lee, born #otd 1926

175h ago

100 years ago news

@100yearsagonews.bsky.social

April 28, 1926: Harper Lee, the author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the modern classic coming-of-age story that explores the roots of racism and prejudice through the eyes of a young girl, is born (as Nelle Harper Lee) in Monroeville, Ala. She based the novel's hero, Atticus Finch, on her father.

A photo of Lee in 1960 by her friend Truman Capote

164h ago

Dave Shoots Books

@daveshootsbooks.bsky.social

We have the first #Canadian edition of #ToKillaMockingbird... www.daveshootsbookseller.com/product/1575... #Booksky #HarperLee #literature

114h ago

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that it’s a man with a gun in his hand. Courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” -American writer Harper Lee, born on this day in 1926 #WriterSky #BookSky

She is best known for her milestone novel To Kill A Mockingbird, about the segregated south as seen through the eyes of two children. Though it is often associated with the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the story Lee tells is from 1919. The court trial at the center of Mockingbird is loosely based on a case involving two black men, accused of murder, and defended by Lee’s father. The two men were ruled guilty and executed. Lee’s father never again defended anyone accused in a criminal case.

75h ago

Frank Amari

@frankamari.bsky.social

"People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for." -- Harper Lee, born#OTD 1926, in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

97h ago

Elise Flynn2

Something about mistaking. obedience for belonging - thank you, as always, George Orwell.

Ridgehead

@ridgeheadgames.bsky.social

My favorite part is them using the phrase "spent years" to describe just two discrete events that happened years apart. I bought To Kill A Mockingbird in 2002 and Go Set A Watchman in 2018, therefore according to Bloomberg I've spent years quietly acquiring the novels of Harper Lee

13Yesterday

Alexander Manshel

@manshel.bsky.social

In 2009, half a century after TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was published, Harper Lee received a royalty check for over $1.6 million—and that was just for the first six months of the year! If you want to know why, join me tonight on Zoom at the Stanford Humanities Center! shc.stanford.edu/stanford-hum...

A photograph of an early edition of Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

6Yesterday

The History of Literature Podcast

@holpod.bsky.social

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird #botd #books #literature #harperlee

Book cover. Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

45h ago

LibraryThing

@librarything.com

Today is the birthday of American novelist #HarperLee. Her bestselling classic, "To Kill a Mockingbird," was awarded the 1961 Pulitzer Prize, and was made into an Academy Award-winning film. Have you read "Mockingbird," or Lee's long-anticipated follow-up, "Go Set a Watchman?" #💙📚 #Booksky