Renowned Southern Author - Harper Lee

Samuel Brice Hall serves as director of investor relations at Piedmont Private Equity, LLC. Away from his professional responsibilities, Samuel Brice Hall is an avid reader. He regularly rereads To Kill a Mockingbird, the famed novel by Harper Lee.

Harper Lee, who experienced a difficult childhood, developed a liking for English literature in high school. At college, she avoided the traditional female pursuits of fashion and dating, preferring to write and to concentrate on her studies instead. Lee became the editor of the humor magazine of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Her studies ultimately began to compete with her writing for her time. Eventually, once she had figured out where her true passion lay, Lee dropped out. She moved north to pursue her authorial ambitions.

Befriended by a Broadway composer who paid her living expenses for a year, Lee devoted herself to full-time writing. Her manuscript became known as To Kill a Mockingbird. While waiting for its publication, Lee helped her childhood friend, Truman Capote, with research and interviews for a New Yorker article. That article would ultimately grow into his non-fictional book, In Cold Blood.

After it came out, Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize and a number of other awards. The film adaptation won three Oscars. In later years, Lee retired from public life. She made anonymous donations to charities from her substantial wealth. 

In 2015, a pre-Mockingbird novel that a publisher had rejected came to light. It featured the characters from Mockingbird in a period later than that highlighted in the more famous book. After the publication of Go Set a Watchman, its depiction of the character, Atticus Finch, as a racist surprised readers. Nevertheless, Go Set a Watchman broke the pre-sale records of its publisher, HarperCollins. Lee died in her sleep in 2016, aged 89.