Her novel To Kill a Mockingbird has been voted as the best of the century

The first draft of Harper Lee's book, originally titled Go Set a Watchman, later changed to Atticus, and finally to To Kill a Mockingbird, was completed in 1959. To Kill a Mockingbird was released by J.B. Lippincott Company on July 11, 1960. The book received favorable reviews and became a success right away.

It received multiple honors, including the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It won the title of "Best Novel of the Century" in a Library Journal survey in 1999. The book was ranked by British librarians as one that "every adult should read before they die" in 2006, surpassing the Bible. The book has been printed in more than 30 million copies, and thousands of copies are still sold each year.