Atticus Finch: The Biography

Who was the real Atticus Finch? A prize-winning historian reveals the man behind the legend

The publication of Go Set a Watchman in 2015 forever changed how we think about Atticus Finch. Once seen as a paragon of decency, he was reduced to a small-town racist. How are we to understand this transformation?

In Atticus Finch, historian Joseph Crespino draws on exclusive sources to reveal how Harper Lee's father provided the central inspiration for each of her books. A lawyer and newspaperman, A. C. Lee was a principled opponent of mob rule, yet he was also a racial paternalist. Harper Lee created the Atticus of Watchman out of the ambivalence she felt toward white southerners like him. But when a militant segregationist movement arose that mocked his values, she revised the character in To Kill a Mockingbird to defend her father and to remind the South of its best traditions. A story of family and literature amid the upheavals of the twentieth century, Atticus Finch is essential to understanding Harper Lee, her novels, and her times.

Author: Joseph Crespino
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 10/20/2020
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9781541644939
ISBN10: 154164493X
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Literary Figures
- History | United States | State & Local | South (AL,AR,FL,GA,KY,LA,MS,
- Literary Criticism | American | Regional

About the Author
Joseph Crespino is the Jimmy Carter Professor of history at Emory University. He is the author of In Search of Another Country, winner of the 2008 Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council, and Strom Thurmond's America. He lives in Decatur, Georgia.