Harper Lee’s Letters Could Sell for $250,000 in Auction

Six typewritten letters by Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, could sell for up to $250,000 when they go up for auction this month.

Christie’s auctioning house will handle the sale of the letters on June 12 in New York. The letters are undated or were written between 1956 and 1961 to Lee’s friend, New York architect Harold Caufield, Reuters reports.

In the letters, Lee wrote about her surprise at the success of her Pulitzer Prize-winning American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as about caring for her ailing father, who was the model for her character 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,” she wrote.

A second book by the 89-year-old Lee will be published on July 14.

[Reuters]