Here's The New York Times' original 1960 review of To Kill a Mockingbird

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Fifty-five years after the release of her classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, it was announced today that Harper Lee will share another work with the world. Go Set a Watchman, which is essentially a sequel to Lee's much-loved first offering, will be released on July 14.

But before it won a Pulitzer Prize and staked a claim on middle school reading lists everywhere, To Kill a Mockingbird was just another book being reviewed by The New York Times. In the July 13, 1960 paper, reviewer Herbert Mitgang dubs Mockingbird "a winning first novel by a fresh writer with something significant to say."

Set in the 1930s in a fictional Alabama town, the book centers on the trial of a black rape suspect being defended by a white lawyer, Atticus Finch, who is also the father of the book's 9-year-old protagonist, Scout. Mitgang includes one of the book's most poignant exchanges, in which Scout questions Atticus about his souring reputation in their small community, to illustrate Lee's deft portrayal of "the opening of the eyes of Southern childhood to the dreary facts of Negro-white injustices." The novel "opens the chrysalis of childhood quietly and dramatically," he writes. "Miss Lee's original characters are people to cherish." Read the full review at The New York Times.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.