Ace illustrations for new Harper Lee novel's first chapter on The Guardian

As you’d expect, when reclusive author Harper Lee announced she was releasing the follow up to seminal text To Kill a Mockingbird – 55 years after its publication in 1960 – there was no shortage of excitement, and it became the most pre-ordered title on Amazon since the final Harry Potter book. The book, called Go Set a Watchman, is due to be released next week but today The Guardian published the first chapter’s text, with audio read by Reece Witherspoon, and accompanied by some beautiful moving animations by illustrator Tom Clohosy Cole. Using a muted palette of dark blues, oranges and yellows, it sets the scene for a novel of journeys, restlessness and love led by protagonist Jean Louise Finch, better known as To Kill a Mockingbird’s Scout.

Go Set a Watchman was penned prior to Lee’s more famous novel, but the author was told by her editor to turn its flashback scenes into the separate book that was to become To Kill A Mockingbird, and was rediscovered by Lee’s lawyer with the original To Kill a Mockingbird manuscript in a safety deposit box.