There is no new novel in Harper Lee's deposit box, according to report

Shortly after the much-anticipated release of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in July, the author’s lawyer Tonja Carter hinted in an op-ed column for The Wall Street Journal that there might be yet another unreleased Lee novel sitting in a safe somewhere. Those rumors appear to have been thoroughly squashed now. As The Wall Street Journal reports, rare books expert James S. Jaffe examined Lee’s safe-deposit box earlier this month and found no trace of new material. In his official report, Jaffe says that the only documents in the box are original drafts of Go Set a Watchman and To Kill a Mockingbird.

There have been hints of other Lee material still out there, and the archives of Lee’s former agents at Columbia University have previously suggested that the author’s incomplete works could include short stories, a novel called The Long Goodbye, and a nonfiction true crime story. None of those have evidence in the safe deposit box, according to Jaffe’s report. Interestingly, an earlier version of Mockingbird found in the box opens with a different opening line: “Where did it all begin? It began with Andrew Jackson.”

Read Jaffe’s full report below.

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