Book lovers will be able to get their hands on Harper Lee’s much anticipated follow-up to To Kill A Mockingbird the minute it goes on sale after Waterstones announced some of its stores will open at the stroke of midnight the day it is published.

The new novel, Go Set A Watchman, is already a guaranteed bestseller and is the follow-up to Lee’s 1960 book about a rape trial in the racially-divided deep south of the US.

To Kill A Mockingbird and its central characters, Scout, her brother Jem and their lawyer father Atticus, were brought to life in a 1962 film starring Gregory Peck.

Go Set A Watchman revolves around the now-adult Scout’s return to her native Alabama from New York to visit her father.

Shops in Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Nottingham will open so fans can buy a copy at one minute past midnight on Tuesday July 14.

Waterstones boss James Daunt said: “The publication of Go Set A Watchman is a thrilling event. We open our shops at midnight to queues of excited customers only very rarely –  in my career for (Gabriel Garcia) Marquez’s Love In The Time Of Cholera way back in 1988, then the run from 1999 to 2007 for JK Rowling and now, most unexpectedly and seemingly miraculously, for Harper Lee in 2015.”

News of the new book’s publication stunned the literary world earlier this year and concerns were raised about the extent of Lee’s involvement in the project.

Her agent was forced to respond to reports suggesting the 88-year-old was being taken advantage of over the publication of the book.

Authorities in her native Alabama closed their investigation into the issue saying the reclusive 88-year-old writer had “made it quite clear” she wanted the book published.