A first US edition of To Kill a Mockingbird arrived among donated American books at the west London shop and is now part of the national collection.
A first US edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has turned up among donations at Oxfam’s bookshop on Portobello Road, the charity said. The British Library has bought the copy, and it will go into the national collection.
The 1960 novel reached the west London shop in a box of books given to the charity from America. Olivia Haysman-Walker, who manages the shop, identified it as a first US edition.
It was a large donation, and Haysman-Walker said the novel could easily have been missed. Staff recognised the title as they sorted the box and set it aside for a closer look. “We realised quite quickly that we had something really special,” she said.
The dust jacket looked its age and was worn at the edges. The pages, she said, were in beautiful condition. She described the book’s path from a charity shop shelf to the British Library as “quite a journey”.
The discovery came during Second Hand September. Oxfam runs the campaign every year to persuade shoppers to pick pre-owned goods over new ones. Haysman-Walker said the book showed the kind of treasures that can sit unnoticed among the donations and shelves in the charity’s shops.
Lee’s novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize, takes place in Alabama in 1934. Its central figure is Atticus Finch, a lawyer who takes on the defence of Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. The book deals with racial injustice and childhood innocence.
Worldwide sales have now passed 40 million, and readers can find it in 40 languages.
The American author was 89 when she died in 2016. Her honours included the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Oxfam bookshop on Portobello Road in west London, where it arrived in a donated box of American books.
The British Library has bought it, and it will go into the national collection.
Shop manager Olivia Haysman-Walker, who confirmed it was a first US edition.
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