Nelle Harper Lee was born on the 28th April 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama USA, descended from Robert E. Lee, who commanded Confederate forces in the American Civil War. She is a novelist, particularly well known for releasing the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1960) for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom among other awards and honorary degrees. Harper Lee has been accumulating her net worth being active in the industry of journalism and writing fiction since the 1950s.
How much is the Harper Lee’s net worth? Reportedly, the wealth of this novelist is as much as $35 million, the majority of her wealth coming as a result of the incredible success of her above-mentioned book.
Harper Lee Net Worth $35 Million
Harper is the youngest of four children in the family of Amasa Coleman Lee, a lawyer, and Frances Cunningham, a housewife. After graduating from high school in Monroeville she went on studying at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, before spending a year at Oxford University in England. Then she decided to study at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, but didn’t finish these studies., but went to work in the ticket office of Eastern Airline in New York.
Since childhood Harper Lee and Truman Capote had been friends, as they went to school together and were neighbours. Truman Capote is said to be the prototype of Dill Harris, the character from her novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Later, she went with him to the town of Holcomb, to help in gathering material for an article about a brutal murder made there. As a result, instead of an article Capote released the book “In Cold Blood” (1966), which was dedicated to his partner Harper Lee.
Lee’s first novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, was released in July 1960, and immediately became a bestseller, such that a year later the author received a Pulitzer Prize for it. In 1962, the film based on the book was released, directed by Robert Mulligan. The film won three Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Gary Cooper Award. On the whole the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” added considerably to the total size of Harper Lee’s net worth.
In addition to this, Lee has published articles “Love – In Other Words” (1961) in Vogue, “Christmas to Me” (1961) and “When Children Discover America” (1965) published in McCall’s, “Romance and High Adventure” (1983) published in the anthology “Clearings in the Thicket” as well as “Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey” (2006) published in The Oprah Magazine. In July 2015, after a 55 year hiatus, Harper Lee released her second novel, entitled “Go Set a Watchman” (2015) which was a first draft of the bestseller “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1960). Actually, this is the first version of the famous story that publisher recommended Lee to convert. It is like the first book, and it immediately became a huge bestseller, beating the top record sales – over a million copies within a few days of release. There is no doubt that It will add huge sums to the overall size of Harper Lee’s net worth.
As if her fame needs any embellishment, there have been at least four films based on Harper Lee and her talent, including “Capote”(2005) and “Infamous”(2006).
Finally, in the personal life of the novelist, Harper Lee is single, but lives with her sister Alice. Lee has two residences, in Monroeville and New York.
