50 Fun Facts About To Kill a Mockingbird

In which year was To Kill a Mockingbird first published?

It won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, while it was in its 41st week on the bestseller list.

What is the name of the fictional Alabama town where the novel is set?

It is the county seat of a county of the same name; the story runs across three Depression years, 1933 to 1935.

What is the narrator Scout's real first name?

She is six when the book opens and lives with her brother Jem and their widowed lawyer father.

Which member of the Finch household is a Black cook who has helped raise the children for years?

She once punishes Scout for embarrassing the poorer Walter Cunningham at the family table, and Atticus backs her judgment.

What is the nickname of Charles Baker Harris, the boy who visits each summer?

Lee modelled him on her childhood next-door neighbour Truman Capote, then known as Truman Persons.

Which famous writer was the real-life model for Dill?

He lived next door to Lee with his aunts while his mother was in New York, and she later helped him research In Cold Blood.

What is the first name of the reclusive neighbour known as "Boo" Radley?

Many of Maycomb's adults have not seen him for years, and the children spin rumours about why he stays inside.

Who is Atticus appointed to defend?

Judge Taylor makes the appointment, and Atticus agrees to defend the man to the best of his ability despite the town's disapproval.

Who is the young white woman whose accusation leads to the trial?

The trial reveals she made advances toward the accused and was beaten by her father for it.

How does Scout break up the lynch mob that confronts Atticus outside the jail?

Recognising Mr. Cunningham and talking to him heart-to-heart shames the men into dispersing.

From where do Jem, Scout and Dill watch the trial?

The Rev. Sykes, pastor of Calpurnia's church, invites them up when there are no seats left on the main floor.

Which animal must Atticus shoot in the street, read by critics as a symbol of facing prejudice alone?

The children discover their mild-mannered father is a crack shot; scholar Carolyn Jones sees the dog as Maycomb's prejudice.

Which elderly neighbour fighting a morphine addiction gives Jem a lesson in courage?

She also scolds Scout for not wearing a dress and insults Atticus for defending Tom Robinson.

After the trial, who vows revenge and spits in Atticus's face?

He also tries to break into the judge's house and menaces Tom Robinson's widow before attacking the children.

Jem and Scout are attacked while walking home from what event?

Scout has fallen asleep backstage and missed her cue as a ham; the attack happens on the dark walk home.

What injury does Jem suffer in the attack?

He is knocked unconscious, and a mysterious man carries him home; Scout realises it is Boo Radley.

How does Sheriff Tate decide to report Bob Ewell's death in order to protect Boo?

Atticus initially assumes Jem was responsible; the sheriff is certain it was Boo and refuses to expose him.

Why, as Miss Maudie explains to Scout, is it a sin to kill a mockingbird?

Miss Maudie gives Scout the explanation after Atticus lets the children shoot bluejays with their Christmas air rifles.

Which 19th-century essayist supplies the novel's epigraph, "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once"?

Legal scholars have written more about the book than literary scholars, according to Claudia Durst Johnson.

Where did Lee take the surname Finch from?

Songbirds run through the whole book, and the mockingbird is the key motif of that theme.

Harper Lee's father, the model for Atticus, never took another criminal case after what happened in 1919?

He was also the editor and publisher of the Monroeville newspaper, and the town's real-life echoes run through the book.

Which real Alabama man, accused of rape near Monroeville when Lee was ten, is a suspected model for the novel's accused?

Her father's newspaper covered the trial; his death sentence was commuted after letters claimed he was falsely accused.

Which editor at J. B. Lippincott guided Lee's early manuscript into To Kill a Mockingbird?

She saw "the spark of the true writer" in the draft then titled Go Set a Watchman but judged it unfit for publication as it stood.

Which award did To Kill a Mockingbird win in 1961?

The award stunned Lee; the book was also named Paperback of the Year by Bestsellers magazine.

Harper Lee gave her last interview to a journalist in which year?

She remained fiercely guarded about her private life until her death in February 2016.

In a 1964 interview, Lee said she aspired to be the Jane Austen of which place?

Like Austen, she challenged the social status quo and valued individual worth over social standing.

Which US president awarded Harper Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007?

A year earlier the entire Notre Dame graduating class held up copies of the book as she received an honorary doctorate.

Go Set a Watchman, published in 2015, was what in relation to To Kill a Mockingbird?

Completed in 1957, it follows an adult Scout visiting Maycomb from New York twenty years after the novel's events.

The title Go Set a Watchman comes from which book of the Bible?

The verse is quoted in the book's seventh chapter by the minister Mr. Stone.

Who played Atticus Finch in the 1962 film?

At his 2003 eulogy, Brock Peters quoted Lee: "Atticus Finch gave him an opportunity to play himself".

Which future star made his big-screen debut as Boo Radley in the 1962 film?

The role has no dialogue; the film also earned Mary Badham, who played Scout, a supporting-actress nomination.

Who directed the 1962 film adaptation?

Producer Alan J. Pakula told studio executives who asked what story he would tell: "Have you read the book? That's the story."

Who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1962 film?

The film took three Oscars from eight nominations, including Best Actor and Best Art Direction, and grossed over $20 million on a $2 million budget.

In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch what?

The AFI later ranked the film first among the ten greatest courtroom dramas.

Which composer wrote the film's celebrated score, recorded three separate times?

The gentle piano-led theme is regularly listed among the greatest film scores.

Which screenwriter wrote the Broadway adaptation that debuted in 2018?

A different stage version has been performed annually in Lee's hometown of Monroeville since 1990.

Since 1990, a play based on the novel has been performed annually where?

The town is Monroeville; Lee refused to attend any performances, saying she abhorred anything that traded on the book's fame.

Which best-selling true-crime book did Lee help her friend Capote research?

The book about the Clutter family murders was serialised in 1965 and published in 1966.

What was Harper Lee's first name, which she dropped for publication?

She was born in Monroeville on April 28, 1926, the youngest of four children.

Which two literary categories do scholars use to describe the novel?

Boo Radley's near-supernatural house supplies the Gothic; Scout and Jem's coming of age supplies the rest.

Where did the American Library Association rank the novel among the most challenged books of 2000 to 2009?

Its racial slurs, profanity and frank treatment of rape have drawn challenges since 1963; a 1966 Virginia parent called it immoral.

Which child locks a classmate in the church basement, prompting the cook to take the children to her church?

The visit gives the children a glimpse of Calpurnia's private life and of Tom Robinson's community.

Which formidable relative moves in with the Finches and clashes with Atticus over firing the cook?

Atticus stands up to his sister, insisting Calpurnia stays; Uncle Jack is the one who teaches the children to shoot.

For which airline did Harper Lee work as a reservation clerk after moving to New York in 1950?

Donations from friends later let her quit and write uninterrupted for a year.

What working title did the manuscript carry after 'Go Set a Watchman' was rejected and before its final name?

Lee renamed it to show the story went beyond a character portrait; Lippincott warned it might sell only a few thousand copies.

Which publication's condensed-books series reprinted the novel in part, giving it an immediate wide readership?

The book has never been out of print since 1960.

Which city's mayor chose the novel as the first title of his One City, One Book program in 2001?

By 2004, 25 communities had picked it for citywide reading programs, more than any other novel.

What did Harper Lee give Gregory Peck, so impressed was she by his performance?

He carried it the night he won his Oscar; it was later stolen from his luggage at Heathrow, and Lee said, 'it's only a watch'.

Who wrote the stage adaptation that has played in Monroeville every May since 1990?

White male audience members are picked at the interval to serve as the jury, and the courtroom scene moves into the real courthouse.

What did the entire graduating class do when Lee received an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame in 2006?

The next year President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.