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To Kill a Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition |  | Author: Harper Lee
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 316
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 50 Anv
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061743526
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780061743528
ASIN: 0061743526
Publication Date: May 1, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much. One of the best-loved classics of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many dis-tinctions since its original publication in 1960. It has won the Pulitzer Prize, been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. It was also named the best novel of the twentieth century by librarians across the country (Library Journal). HarperCollins is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's publication with this special hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 Still as great as it was 50 years ago May 25, 2010
JLind555
46 out of 47 found this review helpful
It hardly seems like 50 years since I picked up this book late one rainy night when it was first published, after my mom had been raving about the book for weeks, trying to get me to read it. Well, what the heck, the late movie was boring that evening and there was nothing else on the TV... next thing I knew, it was two o'clock in the morning and I had just turned the final page on what was the most magical reading experience of my entire life.
From the opening line, "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow..." Lee hooks the reader with a deceptively simple story of a Southern family and a Southern town caught up in a cataclysmic moral crisis, and keeps us enthralled till the very last word. Lee's writing style is that of the storyteller who mesmerizes her audience telling a tale so simple, yet so compelling, that you never want it to end. Her narrator is Scout Finch, a delightfully devilish little tomboy who sees her world through the all-observant eyes of childhood. Scout is one of the most enchanting characters in modern American fiction. She's bright, funny, totally real; there's nothing contrived about her. She's someone we all knew in first or second grade, or wished we'd known. Scout lives with her brother Jem, four years her senior, her lawyer father Atticus, and their housekeeper Calpurnia, in a sleepy Alabama town where everybody knows or is related to everybody else. Lee spends the first half of the book drawing us into the life of the town and the Finch family, Scout's hilarious and problematic adjustment to first grade, and brings us into the mystery surrounding the notorious-yet-never-seen Boo Radley. The second half of the book is about the moral crisis that tears the town apart.
Lee has a way of saying a lot by saying very little, and her laconic statement that the people of Maycomb had recently been told they had nothing to fear but fear itself sets the time squarely in 1933, the depths of the Great Depression. Times were bad for most people in small Southern towns; they were especially bad for poor whites and all blacks. In 1933 the South was rigidly segregated down every possible line, and a white woman's false accusation of rape was enough to get a black man hanged. When Mayella Ewell accuses Tom Robinson of rape, in the eyes of most of the white populace, Tom has been tried, convicted and is awaiting execution. Judge Taylor disagrees, and asks Atticus to take Tom's case.
In Atticus Finch, Lee created what would eventually grow to be the best-loved character in all American fiction. Atticus is a loving but not a doting father, an able lawyer, and an individual of towering integrity. He takes Tom's case because he knows Mayella's accusation is full of holes, and he believes Tom is as deserving of good legal representation as anyone else. Atticus knows better than anyone else how his decision to take the case will affect his children, but as he explains to Scout, who wonders how Atticus can be right if everybody else thinks he's wrong, if he didn't take the case, he could never hold his head up in front of his children again.
Atticus knows he's fighting a losing battle, but deep inside himself he believes he may lose a battle but win a bigger war. The chapters describing Tom Robinson's trial and Atticus's defense are some of the most powerful in American fiction. On of the most moving passages in the book is at the end of the trial when the town's black minister tells Scout to "Stand up. Your father's passin'."
Along with Scout and Atticus Finch, Lee created a host of other memorable characters. Jem is the perfect big brother for Scout, sometimes protective, sometimes antagonistic, always encouraging. Lee only needs to pen a few details about Calpurnia to bring her vividly to life: "She was all angles and bones; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard." Calpurnia isn't the stereotypical Mammy of Tara; she's a no-nonsense maid and housekeeper who dishes out ample amounts of love and old-fashioned discipline in equal doses. And Miss Maudie Atkinson is a delightful creation; funny, ditzy, and wise all at once. Anyone would want her for their next-door neighbor.
The two major villains, Bob Ewell and his daughter Mayella, are compelling characters in their own right. Bob Ewell is quintessential white trash, spending the family's relief money on moonshine while his children go hungry. But poor Mayella is as much victim as villain; we can't help but feel for her, ostracized and isolated, knowing only her father's physical violence and sexual abuse; her attempted seduction of Tom Robinson is a desperate cry for love and affection. But, as Lee reminds us, it's all for naught. Tom Robinson was dead the minute Mayella, caught in the act of attempted seduction by her father, opened her mouth and screamed.
After the highlight of the trial, the book might have slid into anticlimax, but it's Lee's genius that she keeps the tension heightened after the trial and its denouement, through Ewell's drunken, insane attack on Atticus through his children, and their rescue by Boo Radley. And after everything she, her family, and the town have been through, what has Scout learned from all this? Pretty much what Atticus set out to teach her all along: that you can't get to know a person until you put on his shoes and walk around in them.
I turned the final page of "To Kill A Mockingbird", unbelieving that it had come to an end. I opened the front cover and immediately started reading it over again from page one. At two o'clock in the morning. The book had that much of an effect on me. One doesn't just read this book; one experiences it. At best, one lives it. I did.
Judy Lind
A Classic in its Originally-Designed Cover May 29, 2010
T. Orman (Midwest, USA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
TKaM is a classic and it was nice to see the 50th edition in its originally-designed book jacket. If you've never read this book, there is no better time than the present. Harper Lee's story is timeless, and her message of tolerance and compassion for all is just as clear today as it was 50 years ago.
The book was delivered the same day of its release.
Geat Book June 21, 2010
Judith M. Lock (Albuquerque, NM)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My all time favorite book great to have this 50th anniverary addition as a keepsake! A wonderful coming of age story as fresh today as when I first read it in the 1960s
Beautiful, high-quality edition. August 2, 2010
Spade
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For those worried that this is a sub par edition, please take the negative reviews with a grain of salt. The decorative design is called deckle edge and the pages are designed to look handmade. The pages are high quality and this hardback edition is beautifully done.
This is a great second copy for those of you who want a beautiful hardback to replace the copy you read as a young student.
For those who have not read it, the book is one of the best ever. A must read.
One of the greatest books ever written. Period. June 30, 2010
I, Da Ca$hman (Colorado)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
For all my reviews visit my website
I am NOT reviewing the DVD. Just the movies unless otherwise stated.
Please note that the rating above might not accurately reflect my thoughts, you will see a rating sentence at the end of the review.
The story of a childhood in a sleepy southern town and the crisis that rocked it. I usually don't buy the back cover hooplah, but come on! Read it, I'M BEGGING YOU! Everybody who has had a childhood should read this book! Unless you are clones from outer space, you should read this book. That is what I am saying. Full of absolute symbolism and meaning.
I love how Harper Lee perfectly tells the story of childhood, not only does she just tell a story, she tells a soul story. Everybody feels that they miss their childhood, and this book, if you can be smart reading it, totally tells you why.
The only problem with this book is that it is written in a fashion made a little too difficult, it implies things where it should just have an answer after a little mystery. It also has a few breaks in the page and, heck, the grammar is just not the best. But those are my only problems!
It seems to me that the smart people are the good people. Harper Lee understands what went on back in 1932-35. Not only was their a great depression and Hitler (which this book touches on in a good amount,) there was racism, there was no visual entertainment besides books (look at the top of the page,) and you couldn't go to plays or movies unless you were super lucky and rich. And that was few, 25% of Americans didn't have jobs.
But here comes this wonderful boy named Dill, who brings his stories of movies, riches, adventures, and awesomeness. Then, things turn on him later in the book and the children hearts are crushed. Oh yeah, the children. They are named Scout and Jem son and daughter of Atticus Finch, single dad. Perfect setting. That definably touches on the modern family a lot. There's also the mysterious Radley place, and as the young children they are, they start to develop myths about them. Man, just saying all this, you gotta go read this book for God's sakes!!!
And there's all the characters we meet as children, the strict one who tries to re-mold us, the perfectionist (actually there are two in this book,) the one we want to help but we can't (also two in this book) the person who loves us and knows what's right (also two,) the terrible awful person that hurts us so much (1) and of course, ourselves and our siblings and friends (3.) Several other characters also come into play, but those are negotiable.
But, it all comes down to "How is To Kill a Mockingbird to relate to this book?" Well, Atticus says it's a sin to kill a mockingbird, they don't do nothing but sing their hearts out for us. Well, think about it, ain't it a sin to kill a childhood? Ain't it a sin to convict someone who doesn't deserve it? Ain't it a sin to, basically do wrong to someone who does no wrong for your own gain?
It just touches me so well, because childhood is something I've examined over and over and over, and I totally see what Harper Lee is trying to say with this book!
The Rating? 6/5
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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