Harper Lee 'Mockingbird' sequel on the way

Ann Oldenburg | USA TODAY

Big book news!

A new (old) Harper Lee novel is coming this summer. It will be the author's first new work in more than 50 years.

Publisher Harper announced Tuesday that Go Set a Watchman, a novel the Pulitzer Prize-winning author completed in the 1950s and put aside, will be released July 14.

It's essentially a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, although it was finished before that classic, reports AP.

The publisher plans a first printing of 2 million copies.

"In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called 'Go Set a Watchman,' " the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by Harper.

"It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became To Kill a Mockingbird) from the point of view of the young Scout.

"I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn't realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."

According to the publisher, Carter came upon the manuscript at a "secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird."

The new book is set in Lee's Maycomb, Ala., during the mid-1950s, 20 years after To Kill a Mockingbird.

"Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus," says the publisher's announcement. "She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood."

Lee, who still lives in her hometown of Monroeville, Ala., has rarely spoken since the 1960s and the publisher says she isn't likely to do a publicity tour for this book.

To Kill a Mockingbird is among the most beloved novels in history, with sales topping 40 million copies. It was released on July 11, 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck in an Oscar-winning performance as attorney Atticus Finch.