 Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 On Dec. 12, 1960, Harper Lee sat down at her typewriter and wrote an exuberant letter to her close friend, the New York architect Harold Caufield, expressing her shock and delight at a glowing review of her debut novel. “We were surprised, stunned & dazed by the Princeton Review,” she wrote. Despite her towering stature in the literary world for her blockbuster novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” little is known about Ms. Lee’s personal life, politics or writing habits. Now, as anticipation builds for Ms. Lee’s long-waited second book, “Go Set a Watchman,” a rare collection of six personal letters that Ms. Lee wrote to Mr. Caufield has surfaced, offering an oblique window into her creative struggles; her strained relationship with her hometown, Monroeville, Ala.; her views on religion and Southern politics; and her adoration for her father, A. C. Lee, a model for the crusading lawyer Atticus Finch. The signed and typed letters were written to Lee's friend, New York architect Harold Caufield, between 1956 and 1961, according to Christie's, which is selling them on Friday. The auction came about a month before the release of Harper Lee's much-anticipated second novel, "Go Set a Watchman." The novel, set in the fictional Alabama town of Maycomb, takes place 20 years after “To Kill a Mockingbird”; features an adult Scout, who has returned to Alabama from New York to visit an aging Atticus. "She's arguably one of the most important American novelists of the post-war period who has not published a great deal," said Tom Lecky, Christie's head of books and manuscripts. The sale comes as Lee's second book, "Go Set a Watchman," is set to be released in July.
– The reclusive Harper Lee reportedly wrote to friends a lot in her younger days, but few letters have "trickled out" because of her desire for privacy, as the New York Times puts it. That changed today when six she wrote to friend Harold Caufield between 1956 and 1961—before and after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird—went up for auction at Christie's. It turned out that the letters, now in the possession of a book collector, failed to sell, reports AP. (The expected price was $250,000; the bidding didn't hit the reserve price.) But we still get to read snippets, from AP, the Times, and the Los Angeles Times: 'Mockingbird success: "We were surprised, stunned & dazed by the Princeton review. The procurator of Judea is breathing heavily down my neck—all that lovely, lovely money is going straight to the Bureau of Internal Revenue tomorrow." On her dad, the model for Atticus Finch: "Daddy is sitting beside me at the kitchen table. ... I found myself staring at his handsome old face, and a sudden wave of panic flashed through me, which I think was an echo of the fear and desolation that filled me when he was nearly dead. It has been years since I have lived with him on a day-to-day basis." Small-town life: “I don’t trust myself to keep my mouth shut if I feel moved to express myself, thereon it will get out all over Monroeville that I am a member of the NAACP, which, God forbid. They already suspect this to be a fact anyway.” She also complains of the town's "ecclesiastical gloom." The lot included an inscribed 35th anniversary copy of the book: "Hal: Can you believe it?? You've lived to see this, and still have all your teeth and gumption. You will always be my beloved friend, hairless though you are." Lee's controversial second novel, Go Set a Watchmen, is out next month.