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YOU MAY HAVE READ TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD BY LEE HARPER. For many years, it was required reading in a school where I taught. Reading it out loud to my students as well as making it ‘come alive’ was a tough task.
U.S. President George W. Bush (L) awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to American novelist Harper Lee (C) in the East Room of the White House, in this file photo from November 5, 2007…
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WHY HAS HARPER LEE SUED HER HOMETOWN MUSEUM WHICH IS DEDICATED TO HER BESTSELLER?
Miss Nelle would often visit Monroeville from New York to see family and friends and spend hours signing the books of townspeople, until someone sold an autographed book on the Internet.
That did it, he said. “She hated being commercialized.”
Town dependent on fame of Harper Lee book stung by museum lawsuit
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Notice: The museum will be closed Saturday, Nov. 2, due to unforeseen circumstances
Visit us and discover the
heart of To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the world’s best loved novels, is set in our beautiful town of Monroeville, Alabama, where Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harper Lee grew up just a few blocks from the old courthouse. Today, thousands of Mockingbird fans come here each year in search of the novel’s fictional setting of Maycomb. Informative exhibits about Harper Lee and her childhood friend Truman Capote guide you to the famous courtroom, restored as it was in the 1930s. Our acclaimed play production of To Kill a Mockingbird is Alabama’s hottest theater ticket each spring.
Monroe County Heritage Museums
Museum in the old courthouse setting of To Kill a Mockingbird includes exhibits on Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Truman Capote.
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YAHOO! ENTERTAINMENT SINGAPORE
Town dependent on fame of Harper Lee book stung by museum lawsuit
By Verna Gates | Reuters – 10 hours ago
By Verna Gates
MONROEVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) – Harper Lee was once universally revered by her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, but a legal battle over the shrine it built to honour her literary legacy is dividing the small southern city.
The 87-year-old author recently filed a lawsuit against the local museum dedicated to her still-popular 1960 bestseller, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” in a dispute over a merchandising trademark.
Exhibits there celebrate Lee’s achievements, as does an annual play based on the book, while Lee leads a sheltered life at an assisted living home on the edge of town. The townspeople have shielded her from strangers since she moved back from New York a few years ago.
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The legal dispute has formed a cloud over the woman known as “Miss Nelle” after her given name. Lee isn’t talking, but some locals who once were fiercely protective of her are.
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“She always complained about the cottage industry that had arisen around her work,” but she never raised an issue with the museum…except on one occasion when a cookbook was issued in 2001 using the name of Calpurnia, a key character in the book. The cookbook was withdrawn.
Attorneys for Lee accuse the local museum of violating her right to profit from her sole work, which they say has sold more than 30 million copies and is still required reading for two-thirds of American schools.
In 20 years, the museum, which operates several historic sites in the area, has never paid a licensing fee to the author for using the book title and a mockingbird image on merchandise.
The museum says that’s because she never requested it.
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Some fear the lawsuit could shut down the museum, which relies on the gift shop to fund its educational programs for schoolchildren, and potentially hurt local businesses that depend on the steady trickle of tourists.
“Without tourism, I don’t know what the town would do,” said Nathan Carter, a cousin of Capote and a former museum employee.
Town dependent on fame of Harper Lee book stung by museum lawsuit
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WHAT YOU COULD BUY AT THE MUSEUM
Town dependent on fame of Harper Lee book stung by museum lawsuit
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weehingthong 