As a child Lee was a tomboy and a precocious reader. After she attended public school in Monroeville she attended Huntingdon College, a private school for women in Montgomery for a year and then transferred to the University of Alabama.
Five Things to Know About Harper Lee
1.Her Writing Career Was a Christmas Present.
2.She Learned to Write With Truman Capote.
3.She Had a Lifelong Love Affair With Her Hometown.
4.Her Book Was Repeatedly Banned and Challenged.
5.She Made a Mean Cornbread. What did Harper Lee's mom suffer from?
bipolar disorder
Her mother played a small part in her first novel.
Atticus Finch, the main character in Lee's novel takes his last name from her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. Lee's mother suffered from mental illness, possibly bipolar disorder, and rarely left the house. What was Harper Lee's personality like?
By all accounts, Harper Lee is friendly and gregarious with those she knows, but has always been an extremely private person, disclosing little about her life to the public. Consequently, most of the information available about Lee's childhood comes from friends and is largely anecdotal.