Lindsey Graham

Decades later, when an old manuscript of hers suddenly appeared, no one knew what to believe, and a battle over her classic book and her legacy began.

This is the story of Harper Lee, who wrote a narrative that gripped a nation, only to lose control of her own.

This is the final episode in our six-part series, Great American Authors, Mockingbird.

Nell Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama in April 1926, the youngest of four children.

Unlike her older sisters, Alice and Louise, Nell quickly developed a reputation for rebellious behavior.

She was known to horse around with boys on the playground, climb tall trees, and call her schoolteachers by their first names.

In 1930, the town of Monroeville had just over 1,300 residents, an old hotel, and no library.

The streets were unpaved, and the only places with plumbing were the jail and the courthouse.

It was the era of the Great Depression, and Lee later recalled, We didn't have much money.

We didn't have many toys to play with.

So the result was we lived in our imaginations most of the time.

Lee's mother, Frances, never quite understood her youngest daughter.

She had been raised in a genteel southern home, studying Latin and playing the piano at a girls' finishing school, not getting her pants dirty in tackle football.

And during Nell's childhood, her mother began to suffer from what her family called a nervous disorder.

Her drastic mood swings brought with them erratic behavior.

Her mental illness kept her largely housebound and meant that Nell and her siblings came to primarily rely on their father, Amasa Coleman, or A.C.

Lee, for stability.

A.C.

Lee was already in his fifties by the time Nell entered the first grade.

A lawyer and part-owner of a local newspaper, he was often stoic and introspective in public.