Contents of Harper Lee's will to remain a secret
MONROEVILLE, Ala. -- Famously private in life, "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee is keeping her secrets even in death.
Monroe County Probate Judge Greg Norris signed an order last week to seal Lee's will from public view, according to court records available Monday. Lawyers for Lee's personal representative and attorney, Tonja Carter, had asked for the will to remain private and Lee's heirs and relatives agreed to the request, according to the court filing.
"As the Court is no doubt aware, Ms. Lee highly valued her privacy," the lawyers wrote. "She did not wish for her private financial affairs to be matters of public discussion. Ms. Lee left a considerable legacy for the public in her published works; it is not the public's business what private legacy she left for the beneficiaries of her will."
Carter represented Lee for several years and once practiced law with the writer's sister, Alice Lee.
In a two-page order issued a week ago Monday, Morris wrote that he agreed there was a threat of public intrusion and harassment for Lee's heirs. They and Lee's next of kin have a right to inspect the contents of the will and accompanying file, but no one else does, he wrote.
The judge ordered that a label be put on the file stating, "UNDER SEAL: DO NOT ALLOW PUBLIC INSPECTION."
Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 for "To Kill a Mockingbird," which was based on her childhood. The novel addressed racial injustice in the South as it followed the story of Scout, the protagonist, and her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer who defends a falsely accused black man of rape in 1930s Alabama.
The book became an American classic, selling more than 40 million copies worldwide since its publication.
Lee published her second book, "Go Set a Watchman," in 2015, which was told from the perspective of Scout 20 years later. She wrote it before "To Kill a Mockingbird" while living in New York in the 1950s; after she submitted it to a publisher in 1957, she was told to rewrite it with a younger Scout.
"Watchman" sold more than 1.1 million copies in less than a week. Publisher Harper Collins said it was the fastest-selling book in history.
Lee was born on April 28, 1926 and grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, as the youngest of four children of lawyer and politician Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. She later studied law at the University of Alabama, but did not complete her degree.
In 1949, Lee moved to New York to pursue writing, and worked as an airline reservations clerk as her day job. She submitted her first manuscript, which would eventually become "Go Set a Watchman," eight years later to J.B. Lippincott & Co (the publisher was later acquired by Harper & Row, which eventually became HarperCollins).
After spending decades mostly in New York, Lee lived the final years of her life at an assisted-living facility not far from the old courthouse that served as a model for the set in the movie version of "Mockingbird."
The book was adapted into a 1962 film starring Gregory Peck. The highly-acclaimed movie won three Oscars.
Though Lee used to her time between New York and Alabama, she moved to Monroeville full time after she suffered a stroke in 2007.
Lee died in her sleep on Feb. 19. She was 89.