BREAKING‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Author Harper Lee Has Died at Age 89

Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird, has sadly died. She was 89-years-old.

The news of Harper’s passing was confirmed by the mayor’s office in her hometown of Monroeville, Ala. on Friday, Feb. 19. The novelist was born Nelle Harper Lee on April 28, 1926.

The author published To Kill a Mockingbird — one of the most highly-regarded pieces of American literature — in July 1960 to abundant critical and commercial success. The book, which sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, was later adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Gregory Peck and Mary Badham. Harper published Go Set a Watchman, an earlier draft of Mockingbird promoted as a sequel, in July 2015.

Harper’s two books, photographed in July 2015.

“The world has lost a brilliant mind and a great writer,” Spencer Madrie, owner of Ol’ Curiosities and Book Shoppe, a small, independent book store in Harper’s hometown, told AL.com following her passing.

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“We will remember Harper for her candor, her talent and the truths she gave the world, perhaps before the world was ready. We are grateful to have had a connection to an author who offered so much,” Madrie added.