Editing To Kill a Mockingbird (section)

== ''Go Set a Watchman'' ==
{{main|Go Set a Watchman{{!}}''Go Set a Watchman''}}
An earlier draft of ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', titled ''[[Go Set a Watchman]]'', was controversially released on July 14, 2015.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/opinion/joe-nocera-the-watchman-fraud.html|title=The Harper Lee 'Go Set a Watchman' Fraud|date=25 July 2015|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref><ref name="marjamills">{{cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/07/20/the-harper-lee-i-knew-2/ |title=The Harper Lee I knew|author=Marja Mills|date=20 July 2015|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=4 September 2015}}</ref><ref name="jennifermaloney">{{cite news|url=https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/17/gregory-peck-atticus-finch-go-set-a-watchman/ |title=What Would Gregory Peck Think of 'Go Set a Watchman'? His Son Weighs In|author=Jennifer Maloney|newspaper=Wall Street Journal|date=July 17, 2015 |access-date=4 September 2015}}</ref> This draft, which was completed in 1957, is set 20 years after the time period depicted in ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' but is not a continuation of the narrative.<ref name=autogenerated2 /><ref name=autogenerated1 /> This earlier version of the story follows an adult [[Scout Finch]] who travels from [[New York City]] to visit her father, [[Atticus Finch]], in [[Maycomb, Alabama]], where she is confronted by the intolerance in her community. The ''Watchman'' manuscript was believed to have been lost until Lee's lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it, but this claim has been widely disputed.<ref name=autogenerated1 /><ref name="marjamills"/><ref name="jennifermaloney"/> ''Watchman'' contains early versions of many of the characters from ''To Kill a Mockingbird''.<ref name="smh">{{cite web|url=http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/harper-lee-to-release-second-novel-50-years-after-to-kill-a-mockingbird-20150204-135ck6.html |title=Harper Lee to release second novel 50 years after To Kill a Mockingbird|first=Michael|last=Idato|newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald|date=February 4, 2015|access-date=February 4, 2015}}</ref> According to Lee's agent Andrew Nurnberg, ''Mockingbird'' was originally intended to be the first book of a trilogy: "They discussed publishing ''Mockingbird'' first, ''Watchman'' last, and a shorter connecting novel between the two."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/05/harper-lee-to-kill-a-mockingbird-sequel-go-set-a-watchman |title=Harper Lee's 'lost' novel was intended to complete a trilogy, says agent|author=Alison Flood|date=February 5, 2015|newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> This assertion has been discredited, however,<ref name="nytimes.com">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/business/media/expert-says-manuscript-is-not-lees-third-novel.html|title=Expert Says Manuscript Is Not Harper Lee's Third Novel|date=1 September 2015|work=The New York Times}}</ref> by rare-books expert James S. Jaffe, who reviewed the pages at the request of Lee's attorney and found them to be only another draft of ''To Kill a Mockingbird''.<ref name="nytimes.com"/> Nurnberg's statement was also contrary to Jonathan Mahler's description of how ''Watchman'' was seen as just the first draft of ''Mockingbird''.<ref name=autogenerated2 />
Instances where many passages overlap between the two books, in some case word for word, also refute this assertion.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://qz.com/452650/harper-lee-revisions/ |title=See how Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' became 'To Kill a Mockingbird'|author=Keith Collins|website=Quartz|date=July 14, 2015 |access-date=4 September 2015}}</ref> Both books were also investigated with the help of forensic linguistics and their comparative study confirmed that Harper Lee was their sole author.<ref>{{cite news |title=Michał Choiński Talks about Stylometry |url=https://blog.lsupress.org/michal-choinski-talks-about-stylometry/|access-date=April 2, 2021 |publisher=LSU Press}}</ref>