Academic

Harper Lee Before Atticus Finch: Witty Chain Smoking Red?

By Dan Filler

Jessica Lacher-Feldman, from the Hoole Special Collections Library at the University of Alabama, recently unearthed some fun old clippings from the collection.  It seems that Nellie Harper Lee,  author of To Kill A Mockingbird and an Alabama icon, was once the editor of Bama's student humor magazine, Rammer Jammer.  In an October 8, 1946 article in the Crimson White, Alabama's student paper, Lee is described as "a law student, a Chi Omega, a writer, a Triangle member, a chain smoker, and a witty conversationalist."  We learn that "her Utopia is a land with the culture of England and the government of Russia; her idea of heaven is place where diligent law students and writers ascend after death and can stay up forever without benzedrine."  It's hard to know which parts were serious Nellie and which witty Harper.

The article concludes: "As for literary aspirations she says, 'I shall probably write a book some day.  They all do.'"  Surely an understatement for the ages.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on May 28, 2008 (boomark / email).