About This Book

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a timeless classic that has captivated readers for generations. Published in 2002, this paperback edition is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring themes of justice, morality, empathy, and social inequality.

Who Uses It?

Primarily, this book is used by students and educators in high school English classrooms. It's also a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of human nature and the importance of empathy and understanding. The book's universal themes make it a staple in literature circles and discussions about social justice.

History and Editions

The 2002 edition of To Kill a Mockingbird is part of the Harper Perennial Modern Classics series. This edition has been widely used in educational settings due to its clear and concise narrative, making it an excellent choice for both students and teachers. The book's enduring relevance ensures that it remains a powerful tool for discussions on social justice and moral courage.

Author and Other Works

Harper Lee is the renowned author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Her writing style is known for its simplicity and depth, making complex themes accessible to readers of all ages. Harper Lee's work has had a profound impact on American literature, and To Kill a Mockingbird remains one of her most celebrated works.

Detailed Information

ISBNs and Formats

Paperback: ISBN-13: 9780060935467
eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780061120084 (The ebook for "To Kill a Mockingbird" is available right here on eCampus.com!)
eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780061120091 (The ebook for "To Kill a Mockingbird" is available right here on eCampus.com!)
Other Editions: Available through eCampus.com with various rental durations

Publication Details

Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: 2002
Number of Pages: 336
Language: English

Rental Options

Rental options are available through eCampus.com with various rental durations.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Chapter One

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.

When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

I said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson. If General Jackson hadn't run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch would never have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn't? We were far too old to settle an argument with a fist-fight, so we consulted Atticus. Our father said we were both right.

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess. In England, Simon was irritated by the persecution of those who called themselves Methodists at the hands of their more liberal brethren, and as Simon called himself a Methodist, he worked his way across the Atlantic to Philadelphia, thence to Jamaica, thence to Mobile, and up the Saint Stephens. Mindful of John Wesley's strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel. So Simon, having forgotten his teacher's dictum on the possession of human chattels, bought three slaves and with their aid established a homestead on the banks of the Alabama River some forty miles above Saint Stephens. He returned to Saint Stephens only once, to find a wife, and with her established a line that ran high to daughters. Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.

It was customary for the men in the family to remain on Simon's homestead, Finch's Landing, and make their living from cotton. The place was self-sufficient: modest in comparison with the empires around it, the Landing nevertheless produced everything required to sustain life except ice, wheat flour, and articles of clothing, supplied by river-boats from Mobile.

Simon would have regarded with impotent fury the disturbance between the North and the South, as it left his descendants stripped of everything but their land, yet the tradition of living on the land remained unbroken until well into the twentieth century, when my father, Atticus Finch, went to Montgomery to read law, and his younger brother went to Boston to study medicine. Their sister Alexandra was the Finch who remained at the Landing: she married a taciturn man who spent most of his time lying in a hammock by the river wondering if his trot-lines were full.

When my father was admitted to the bar, he returned to Maycomb and began his practice. Maycomb, some twenty miles east of Finch's Landing, was the county seat of Maycomb County. Atticus's office in the courthouse contained little more than a hat rack, a spittoon, a checkerboard and an unsullied Code of Alabama. His first two clients were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail. Atticus had urged them to accept the state's generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murder and escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass. The Haverfords had dispatched Maycomb's leading blacksmith in a misunderstanding arising from the alleged wrongful detention of a mare, were imprudent enough to do it in the presence of three witnesses, and insisted that the-son-of-a-bitch-had-it-coming-to-him was a good enough defense for anybody. They persisted in pleading Not Guilty to first-degree murder, so there was nothing much Atticus could do for his clients except be present at their departure, an occasion that was probably the beginning of my father's profound distaste for the practice of criminal law.

During his first five years in Maycomb, Atticus practiced economy more than anything; for several years thereafter he invested his earnings in his brother's education. John Hale Finch was ten years younger than my father, and chose to study medicine at a time when cotton was not worth growing; but after getting Uncle Jack started, Atticus derived a reasonable income from the law. He liked Maycomb, he was Maycomb County born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him, and because of Simon Finch's industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town.

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock . . .

Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She attended the local schools and studied law at the University of Alabama. For some years she spent most of her time in New York City, where, until she began writing, she was employed in the reservations department of an international airline. "Aside from writing," says Miss Lee, "my chief interests in life are collecting memoirs of nineteenth-century clergymen, golf, crime and music."

Excerpted from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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