Harper Lee, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' author is dead

Harper Lee, who wrote one of America's most enduring literary classics, "To Kill a Mockingbird," about a child's view of right and wrong and waited 55 years to publish a second book with the same characters from a very different point of view, died at the age of 89 on Friday.

Mary Jackson, the city clerk in Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, said by phone that Lee had died. A woman who answered the phone at the office of Harper Lee's attorney, Tonja Carter, read a statement on behalf of the family that said Lee "passed away early this morning in her sleep. Her passing was unexpected."

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