Go Set a Watchman was published by HarperCollins, New York, on 14 July 2015, in a first printing of two million copies priced at $27.99. The novel sold over one million copies in its first week — making it the fastest-selling book in HarperCollins history. But the publication was mired in controversy from the moment it was announced: Harper Lee was eighty-nine years old, partially deaf and blind, living in assisted care, and had spent fifty-five years insisting she would never publish another book. Whether she genuinely consented to publication remains disputed.
The Manuscript
Go Set a Watchman is not a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird — it is an earlier draft. Lee wrote it in the mid-1950s and submitted it to J.B. Lippincott. Her editor, Tay Hohoff, recognised the promise of the flashback sequences (set in the 1930s, with young Scout) and suggested Lee write the earlier story instead. The result was To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). The Watchman manuscript was filed away and apparently forgotten until Lee’s lawyer, Tonja Carter, announced its discovery in 2014.
The Novel
The novel follows Jean Louise Finch (Scout) in the mid-1950s as she returns from New York to Maycomb, Alabama, for a visit. She discovers that her father, Atticus Finch — the moral hero of Mockingbird — attends Citizens’ Council meetings (the genteel face of segregationist resistance) and holds racist views about Black civil rights. Jean Louise’s crisis — the shattering of her childhood idealisation of her father — forms the novel’s emotional centre.
The discovery of Atticus’s racism shocked readers who had spent fifty-five years regarding him as American literature’s moral paragon. But the novel is not simply “Atticus was always racist” — it is a young woman’s painful confrontation with the fact that good people can hold abhorrent views, and that moral growth requires seeing one’s parents as human beings rather than gods.
As literature, Watchman is plainly a draft: structurally unfinished, tonally uneven, and lacking the narrative control of Mockingbird. Its value is primarily biographical and literary-historical — as a window into the composition of one of America’s most beloved novels.
Collecting Go Set a Watchman
First edition (2015, HarperCollins): Two million copies, priced at $27.99.
Identification points:
- “First Edition” on the copyright page
- Number line ending in “1”
First edition, first printing:
- Fine/Fine in dust jacket: $10–$30 (unsigned)
- Signed (extremely rare): $3,000–$8,000
Signed copies: Lee signed a very small number of copies before publication — possibly under 500. Given her physical condition (near-blind, arthritic), the signatures are often shaky and abbreviated. Their authenticity has been questioned in some cases. Verified signed copies command significant premiums precisely because of their rarity relative to the print run.
Value trajectory (2016–2026): Minimal appreciation for unsigned copies (the enormous print run ensures permanent oversupply). Signed copies have appreciated approximately 1.5× as Lee’s death in 2016 closed the supply permanently.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this really a new Harper Lee novel? It is a manuscript written in the mid-1950s — before Mockingbird — that Lee’s editor rejected in favour of the earlier-set story. It was neither revised nor prepared for publication by Lee.
Did Lee consent to publication? This remains disputed. Lee’s friends expressed concern about her capacity; her lawyer insisted she was competent and eager. The truth is probably unknowable. Lee died in February 2016, seven months after publication.
Does this “ruin” Atticus Finch? Only if one insists that Mockingbird’s Atticus is the same character. The two books were written at different times with different purposes. Watchman’s Atticus is a more historically realistic portrait of a white Southern moderate in the 1950s.