“My Beloved Hal”: Harper Lee's Best Kept Secret
- Issue:
- УДК / UDK: 821.111
- DOI:
- Abstract:
Writer’s dating life is an important part of his literary work. It either inspires the author to literary feats, or makes him unable to work successfully. The love life of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize winner Nelle Harper Lee has always been a subject of interest for her biographers, since information about it was carefully hidden. Ms. Lee did not give interviews, did not speak publicly, and answered “Hell, no,” for all requests to help create an authorized biography of her. In March 2018, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library (Atlanta, USA) bought six unique letters by Harper Lee. They were written in the period from 1956 to 1961 and addressed to Harold Gray Caufield, a New York architect, whose biography has not yet attracted the attention of researchers. The author of the article, having read Harper Lee's letters thoughtfully, made his own investigation to uncover littleknown details about Harold Caufield’s personality. What kind of relationship did Nelle and Harold really have? The article reproduces photos of the probable lover of Harper Lee for the first time.
- Keywords: Nelle Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, American literary history, biographic studies, correspondence, Harold Gray Caufield, Michael Brown, Paul Kennerson collection, archival materials.
- For citation:
Zakharov, Denis. “ʻMy Beloved Halʼ: Harper Lee’s Best Kept Secret.” Literature of the Americas, no. 10 (2021): 46–82.
https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2021-10-46-82 - References:
Cep 2019 — Cep, Casey. Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Crespino 2018 — Crespino, Joseph. Atticus Finch: The Biography; Harper Lee, Her Father, and the Making of an American Icon. New York: Basic Books, 2018.
Flynt 2017 — Flynt, Wayne. Mockingbird Songs: My friendship with Harper Lee. New York: HarperCollins, 2017.
Lee 1961 — Lee, Harper. “Christmas to Me.” McCalls, December 1961, 63.
Lee 2015 — Lee, Harper. Poidi postav' storozha [Go Set a Watchman]. Мoscow: AST Publ., 2015.
Mills 2015 — Mills, Marja. Uznat’ Peresmeshnika: Zhizn’ s Harper Lee [The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee]. Translated by Tamara Eidel'man. Мoscow: Individuum Publ., 2015.
Newquist 1964 — Newquist, Roy. “Harper Lee.” In Counterpoint, 403–412. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964.
Shields 2006 — Shields, Charles J. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. New York: Henry Holt, 2006.
Capote 2004 — Capote, Truman. Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote. Edited by Gerald Clarke. New York: Random House, 2004.
Zakharov 2020 — Zakharov, Denis V. “Neizvestnaia Kharper Li. K shestidesiatiletiiu vykhoda romana ʻUbit' peresmeshnikaʼ” [“Unknown Harper Lee: ʻTo Kill a Mockingbirdʼ; To the Novel’s Sixtieth Anniversary”]. Literature of the Americas, no. 8 (2020): 32–97.