To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee was a largely unknown quantity when her first (and only) novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published in July 1960. Lee had been encouraged by her childhood friend and neighbor Truman Capote (upon whom the character of Dill in the book is based), and Capote wrote a brief blurb on the dust jacket of the first edition hardback espousing Lee's talent. (In an aside, that blurb led to the spurious rumor that Capote himself actually wrote the book, something which has been definitively disproven.) Lee had no great hopes for the book, and in fact the publisher had warned her it probably wouldn't do very well, so she (not to mention the publishers) when the book became something of an overnight sensation. While there were definitely some naysayers (including author Carson McCullers, who considered To Kill a Mockingbird a bit too similar to her own Southern reminiscences), by and large critical reaction was overwhelmingly positive, and public reaction was nothing short of phenomenal. The property was quickly optioned for film, and by an unusual alignment of the stars (metaphorical and otherwise), a seemingly perfect combination of talents both in front of and behind the camera fell into place for what remains as one of the most sterling literary adaptations of all time.