Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Within two years of its publication in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird had been translated into ten languages, won the Pulitzer Prize, emerged as an Oscar-winning film and spent 88 weeks on the American bestseller lists. By 1964 it had sold five million copies; now the book's world sales total over six times that. It has never been out of print, in either hardback or paperback. Yet the novel has often been misunderstood. It is much more than a 'period piece', in Professor Harold Bloom's phrase, about racial prejudice in the Deep South in the 1930s. In this compelling new guide, Stephen Fender explains the basis of its enduring appeal."--Publisher description.