The half-century gap between Harper Lee’s first and second novels is one of the longest literary intervals of recent times.
Go Set a Watchman is being published 55 years after its predecessor, To Kill a Mockingbird, making it one of the slowest follow-ups to make it into print in modern history.
Such a lengthy gap between a book and its sequel is rare in the publishing industry, but it is not uncommon.
Examples from recent decades include the 24 years it took Richard Adams to write a follow-up to the rabbit-based adventure epic Watership Down, while Ira Levin took 30 years to pen a successor volume to the chiller Rosemary’s Baby.
Joseph Heller waited 33 years before completing a sequel to his ground-breaking anti-war novel Catch-22, while Stephen King took even longer – 36 years – to finish a follow-up to horror classic The Shining.
One of the longest literary intervals of recent times
The 55-year gap between Harper Lee’s novels is one of the longest between two books penned by the same author, however.
It also surpasses one of the most famous literary pauses of the 19th century: the 24 years that elapsed between parts one and two of Faust, by the celebrated German writer Goethe.
It is not quite the longest gap in 20th century literature, however. That honour belongs to Upton Sinclair, whose 1917 novel King Coal about working conditions in the US mining industry was followed up a full59 years later with The Coal War: an interval so long that Sinclair didn’t even live to see the sequel make it into print.
Notable examples of long gaps between novel and follow-up
• Psycho (1959) and Psycho II (1982) by Robert Bloch – 23 years
• Watership Down (1972) and Tales of Watership Down (1996) by Richard Adams – 24 years
• The Witches of Eastwick (1984) and The Widows of Eastwick (2008) by John Updike – 24 years
• Second Foundation (1953) and Foundation’s Edge (1982) by Isaac Asimov – 29 years
• Rosemary’s Baby (1967) and Son of Rosemary (1997) by Ira Levin – 30 years
• Catch-22 (1961) and Closing Time (1994) by Joseph Heller – 33 years
• The Shining (1977) and Doctor Sleep (2013) by Stephen King – 36 years
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) and Go Set A Watchman (2015) by Harper Lee – 55 years
• King Coal (1917) and The Coal War (1976) by Upton Sinclair – 59 years