FIRST EDITION OF "TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD" FOUND

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 22 /SRNA/ - A first edition of Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" has been found in an Oxfam charity shop.

It is an original American edition of the book from 1960 that was donated to Oxfam. The copy of the acclaimed work was discovered in a box of American books.

The book was subsequently purchased by the British Library and will become part of its national collection.

Olivia Haysman-Walker, the shop manager who recognized that it was a first American edition, said the book could easily have gone unnoticed.

"There were many books to go through among the donations, but we recognized `To Kill a Mockingbird` and thought it was worth taking a closer look," she said.

Haysman-Walker added that the book's dust jacket showed signs of age and, although worn around the edges, the inside pages were in excellent condition.

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel tells the story of lawyer Atticus Finch, who defends Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman.

The story of racial injustice and childhood innocence, set in Alabama in 1934, has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 40 languages, the BBC recalls.

Lee, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, died in 2016 at the age of 89.