Would it have been kinder not to publish Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman?

The first chapter of Lee's lost novel may disappoint fans of To Kill a Mockingbird

'Go Set a Watchman' will be Harper Lee's first book since 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was published in 1960 Photo: Donald Uhrbrock/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

By Mick Brown

The Telegraph - 10 July 2015

Amidst all the speculation, and high anticipation, attending the publication of Harper Lee’s "lost" novel, Go Set a Watchman, there is one thing worth bearing in mind: there is a reason it was not published in the first place.

Lee described the book not as "a sequel" but as "the parent" to her immortal classic To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960. That book is set in the 1930s, in the “tired old town” of Maycomb, Alabama, a surrogate for Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, and tells the story of Scout, a six-year-old girl, and her lawyer father Atticus, who takes on the case of a black man, Tom, accused of raping a white woman. Despite the overwhelming evidence of his innocence, Tom is convicted. 

The book’s primary themes are racial injustice, the loss of innocence, and the elevation of Atticus Finch into a potent and timeless literary symbol of quiet, principled decency and justice.

Go Set a Watchman is the book that Lee first presented to her publishers JB Lippincott in 1957. It was accepted, and then began a two year period of editing and rewriting that eventually resulted in Mockingbird. 
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