To Kill a Mockingbird sequel: Best reactions from 'isn't Harper Lee a man?' to Game Of Thrones jokes

Surprise! Go Set a Watchman will be published this coming summer

Gregory Peck and Mary Badham as Atticus and Scout in the 1962 film of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (IMDB)

Harper Lee has announced that she is publishing a follow-up to her classic novel To a Kill a Mockingbird and, as expected, the world has something to say about it.

Some baffled Twitter users seeing photos of 88-year-old Lee on their newsfeeds are feeling ignorant after years thinking she was in fact a he, while others have taken the opportunity to berate Game of Thrones author George RR Martin for his own delay in publishing more books.

There are the (in some cases overwhelmingly) excited book fans, those with their serious doubts and others who reckon Lee is merely doing it for a cheeky "cash-in".

Described as "essentially a sequel", Go Set a Watchman will see Scout return to Maycomb from New York to visit her father Attitcus, Lee's publisher confirmed.

"But I thought Harper Lee was a man!"

"No pressure, George RR Martin!"

 

Those in favour...

...and those against

"[Scout] is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood," a statement about the upcoming book read.

Lee finished the 304-page novel before starting work on To Kill a Mockingbird but decided to put it on the back-burner after her editor suggested writing about Scout as a child, the Associated Press reports.

"I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years," 88-year-old Lee said.

Go Set a Watchman will be published this coming summer on 14 July.