Harper Lee RIP, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Indian-Head Penny magic

News outlets are reporting the death of Harper Lee today.
She was the author of the 1962 book To Kill A Mockingbird.

I like to find literary references to coins in novels or non-fiction books.
Here is one of the more interesting ones.

The novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, published in 1960 by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., became a best-seller and won several literary prizes.

The book mentions Indian-Head pennies early on.

Scout and Jem, two children in Alabama in 1933, find a pair of such pennies and discuss them.
Scout is narrating.

Inside were two scrubbed and polished pennies, one on top of the other.
Jem examined them.
"Indian-heads," he said. "Nineteen-six and Scout, one of 'em's nineteen-hundred.
These are real old."
"Nineteen-hundred," I echoed. "Say---"

"I don't know, Scout. But these are important to somebody...."
"How's that, Jem...?"
"Well, Indian-heads --- well, they come from the Indians.
They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck.
Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it,
but things like long life 'n' good health, 'n' passin' six-weeks test...
these are real valuable to somebody. I'm gonna put 'em in my trunk."


Indian-Head penny 1900


Indian-Head penny 1906

The book was filmed in 1962 with Gregory Peck.
I added film to the "Coins in Movies" section of my website.

The titles are narrated by an adult woman remembering her childhood in early 1930's Alabama.

A pair of hands open a cigar box displaying, among other things, Indian Head and Lincoln pennies


Two Indian Head pennies and two Lincoln pennies.

The 1960 pennies and the film's setting in the 1930's are sometimes considered a "goof" but the adult woman narrating the titles makes it clear that the events in the film occured a long time ago in her childhood.

 

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RIP Harper Lee. She had a great impact on the world. Nice easter eggs with the coins.