Harper Lee, who wrote the classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird, began legal action to get back the copyright to it.

The lawsuit filed in a court in Manhattan, New York, seeks unspecified damages from the son-in-law of Ms Lee’s former literary agent and companies he allegedly created.

The lawsuit claims that Samuel Pinkus failed properly to protect the copyright of the book after his father-in-law, Eugene Winick, became ill a decade ago.

Mr Winick had represented Lee as a literary agent since the book was published in 1960 through the firm McIntosh and Otis.

The 87-year-old author alleges Pinkus took advantage of her declining hearing and eyesight seven years ago to get her to sign over the book’s copyright to him and a company he controlled.