Private Harper Lee letters could fetch $250,000 at auction

Four of the six letters sent from the author to one of her closest friends were written before “To Kill a Mockingbird,” when Harper Lee was caring for her ailing father, Amasa Coleman Lee — the model for her protagonist in “Mockingbird,” Atticus Finch. According to Christie’s, which is putting the letters up for auction Friday, the signed and typed letters to Harold Caufield were sent between 1956 and 1961. In a later letter, Lee writes about her stunned reaction to the huge success of the 1960 book, which was made into a movie starring Gregory Peck two years later. “We were surprised, stunned & dazed by the Princeton review,” she wrote.

Daddy is sitting beside me at the kitchen table. … I found myself staring at his handsome old face, and a sudden wave of panic flashed through me, which I think was an echo of the fear and desolation that filled me when he was nearly dead. It has been years since I have lived with him on a day-to-day basis.

Harper Lee, in a letter to Harold Caufield

Christie’s said the seller, who wished to remain anonymous, acquired the letters on the open market. The auctioneer intentionally has blurred the contents in its catalog and online to protect the author’s privacy. The sale comes as the 89-year-old author’s second book, “Go Set a Watchman,” is set to be released in July.

She’s arguably one of the most important American novelists of the postwar period who has not published a great deal.

Tom Lecky, Christie’s head of books and manuscripts

Harper Lee Arts