Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ cover revealed

Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” book cover was revealed today by HarperCollins. The much-anticipated novel will hit shelves July 14.

The cover design of “Go Set a Watchman” is very much in keeping with the first edition of Lee’s book “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The font is close to the 1960 original. Where on the jacket for the first edition we saw a tree full of leaves, the new cover has the mostly bare branches of a similar tree in fall.

“‘Go Set a Watchman’ begins with Scout’s train ride home,” HarperCollins’ Michael Morrison said in a statement. “But more profoundly, it is about the journey Harper Lee’s beloved characters have taken in the subsequent 20 years of their lives.”

Scout, Atticus Finch and even the terrifying Boo Radley have become beloved characters in fiction. “To Kill a Mockingbird” is one of the most lasting novels of the 20th century.

But Lee never followed it up. For more than five decades, the author largely withdrew from public life and never published another book.

So the announcement this year that a long-lost manuscript -- “Go Set a Watchman” -- would be published as a kind of sequel came as a surprise to many fans and even friends of Lee. Some have wondered if Lee, who is 82 and in an assisted-living facility, was a full participant in its publication. The state of Alabama launched, then swiftly closed, an investigation into charges of elder abuse.

In February, Lee’s attorney released a statement about the to-do over the book from the author, who said, “I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions to ‘Watchman.’”

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