Talk:Harper Lee

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Contents 1 Why a recluse? 2 Misspelling? 3 New or Nord? 4 Oxford 5 What's going on? 6 NY Times 7 Claims of descent from Robert E. Lee 8 Structure/references 9 Order of Lenin 10 Pulitzer Prize date vs. publication date 11 Infobox 12 Oprah! 13 Parenthetical at the End of the Last Sentence

[edit] Why a recluse?

I came to this article to discover why exactly Harper Lee became a recluse. It does not really say for sure. I would be interested in knowing that if anyone happens to know.

• She didn't exactly become a recluse. She just doesn't give interviews or write novels. She does have friends and family and she travels frequently. Dystopos 13:37, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Misspelling?

Is the word anticlimatic spelt wrong? Is it "anticlimactic"? unsigned comment by User:Emilgouliev

You're right. Feel free to correct typos and other errors yourself. Dystopos 17:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New or Nord?

In the text body, the interviewer is Newquist, in the references it is Nordquist. Pls reconcile.

[edit] Oxford

Does anyone know what college Ms. Lee went to at Oxford and what she studied while there?

I believe she was studying law when she went to Oxford for a one-year exchange program from the University of Alabama. I can't find a reference to which college she joined. If this was before the colleges became coeducational, that might narrow the candidates down to a few. I think Lady Margaret, St. Hugh's, St. Hilda's and Somerville were women's colleges. Dystopos 20:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's going on?

I came to this article cause i wanted to know what was going through her life to start a new beginning of books etc. but it doesn't tell that much. -- unsigned comment by User:170.161.69.2, typos in original comment corrected by User:82.32.130.188

• Wikipedia limits itself to information that is verifiable. Since there is no verifiable information about Lee's literary ambitions (and not much about her private life at all), the subject is not detailed here. --Dystopos 14:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NY Times

New York Times had a January 31 (2006) article with an update on Lee's life.--unsigned comment by User:160.39.187.226

• You'll note that a link to the article is already included in the "references" section. I didn't see much in the Times that would add to this article, but feel free to add any information you think is relevant. --Dystopos 14:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Claims of descent from Robert E. Lee

Our article claimed that Harper Lee was a descendant of the Confederate General. A reader sent an e-mail to the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association to confirm this. They advised: I regret that Harper Lee is not a descendant of General Robert E. Lee. There is a chart of Gen. Lee's descendants on the Stratford web site www.stratfordhall.org. Click on "history" in the left navigation bar, then click on Robert E. Lee, scroll to the bottom of his page and see the link to his family tree. General Robert E. Lee has very few descendants, considering that he had seven children. None of his daughters married and only two of his sons had children. I hope that this information is helpful.

The claim has been removed from our article. Capitalistroadster 10:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for your research and correction. (direct link to Lee's family tree) --Dystopos 15:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

• I went back to see what idiot stuck that in there and apparently the idiot was me. The first reference on this page includes the error, but I don't know which came first and I don't recall where I got my bad information. Anyway... Thanks again. --Dystopos 23:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

• And now, the plot thickens. It looks like Encyclopedia Britannica claims this relationship in the second sentence of their article on Harper Lee. A brief Google search turns up several references (ignoring WP mirrors) to corroborate this connection. Perhaps there is a glint of truth and she is "kin" but not a direct descendent. It's better to make no claim than to make a false one. Let's see what we find out. --Dystopos 00:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure/references

• I tweaked the organization a bit today, creating new subheadings and introducing the use of the reference template to create footnotes. I hope to continue footnoting and updating the reference style. Any help is appreciated. --Dystopos 19:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Order of Lenin

I deleted the line " After writing To shoot a mocking bird she won the Order of Lenin.", due to its awkward placement in the article, the fact that there is no real place to put it in the article, and there is no source for this claim. Gsham 01:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pulitzer Prize date vs. publication date

The novel was published in 1960 and the Prize was awarded in 1961. I feel that the actual publication date would be more useful than the Prize date, although the Prize certainly should be mentioned. Unsure how to deal with this without being too wordy, though. MichaelCaricofe 18:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

I am of the opinion that the infobox adds nothing to the article and causes aesthetic damage to the layout. Discussion? --Dystopos 01:46, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The main problem was that it was underpopulated. I added the most basic info with the hopes that someone would update it with the rest of the info. I'll let you decide whether to add it back in or not. -- LGagnon 02:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion many of the fields in the template are irrelevent and that the box as a whole compares poorly as a vehicle for information with the text itself. It may someday make a reasonable frame for a photo if one surfaces. --Dystopos 02:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oprah!

According to the BBC's website today (june 26 2006) Ms. Lee is going to be breaking her silence to write a piece for the next Oprah Magazine. Say it aint so, someone, please.

• As the article states, she has taken no vows of silence, she has simply not completed a second novel. She has, since publishing To Kill a Mockingbird contributed numerous essays to magazines, though not at the rate that one would call "a writing career". --Dystopos 14:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parenthetical at the End of the Last Sentence

Ah, beaten to it. HamillianActor