Much anticipated To Kill a Mockingbird sequel released

NEW YORK

A much anticipated new novel by Harper Lee and a follow-up to her 1960 classic To Kill a Mockingbird, hit shelves around the world Tuesday.

Only the second by the reclusive author, Go Set a Watchman was the novel Lee first submitted to her publishers before Mockingbird. 

Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014.

Its publisher, HarperCollins, said Watchman has become the most pre-ordered book in the company's history and has printed more than 2 million hardcover copies.

The New York Public Library ordered 550 hardcovers and 70 large-print copies.

The book has reportedly been delivered to stores and libraries in more than 70 countries.

Set 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, the new novel features Scout, now 26 and based in New York City, who returns to her Alabama childhood home to visit her father.

Early reviews noted that lawyer Atticus Finch, the moral center of To Kill a Mockingbird, expressed racist views in the story.

Mockingbird was translated into 40 languages and has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961.

Set in a small Alabama town in the 1930s, it was celebrated for its sensitive treatment of a child’s awakening to racism and prejudice in the American South.

A 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck as lawyer Finch won three Academy Awards.