Harper Lee dismissing claims she's been steamrollered into releasing new book

• Publisher claims Harper Lee 'said she is happy as h**l' about new book
• Sequel to her only novel To Kill A Mockingbird will be released this year
• Biographer insists Lee's sister and long-time lawyer, who died recently, would not have allowed the project to go ahead
• Friend of the family says Lee is 'blind' and 'would sign anything'
• Go Set A Watchman was written before Lee penned her masterpiece

ByMia De Graaf For Dailymail.comand Press Association

Published: 05:59 EST, 5 February 2015 | Updated: 10:34 EST, 5 February 2015

The publisher's of Harper Lee's sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird have released a statement from the Putlizer Prize-winning novelist slamming claims she has been coerced into the project.

According to the release, Lee says she is 'happy as h**l' about the publication of Go Set A Watchman, which she wrote before penning her masterpiece.

The statement comes amid speculation the reclusive 88-year-old was coerced into the project after suffering a stroke in 2007 which reportedly left her blind.

Lee previously said she had not realized the manuscript of her new book had survived and that she was 'humbled and amazed' it was going to be published now.

'I'm happy as h**l': Harper Lee's publisher has released a statement slamming claims she has been coerced into publishing Go Set A Watchman, the sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, 60 years after it was written

But critics including her biographer and a friend of the Lee family have spoken out against the release, claiming she is in no fit state to sign publication papers.

Charles J Shields, author of Mockingbird: Portrait Of Harper Lee, said the project would have been blocked if Alice Lee, the novelist's older sister and lawyer, had not died.

'Understanding the relationship between the sisters as I do, I doubt whether Alice would have allowed this project to go forward,' Shields told the International Business Times.

He said Alice, who died in November 2014 at the age of 103, was 'Harper Lee's buffer against the publicity hungry world.'

'It's because her sister is dead,' he explained. 'Alice was in control of Harper's life, of what she signed. But now the lid's off, and a book written half a century ago is going to be published.'

Unaware? Harper Lee, pictured with Gregory Peck, who starred in the movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird, allegedly did not know the manuscript for her original version - Go Set A Watchman - survived 60 years

Adding to the outcry, Marja Mills, a friend of the Lee family and author of a Harper Lee memoir, told the New York Times: 'I have some concerns about statements that have been attributed to her.'

She said Alice Lee, told her that Harper 'can't see and can't hear and will sign anything put before her by anyone in whom she has confidence.'

Furthermore, publisher Jonathan Burnham acknowledged that the publisher has had no direct conversations about the new book with Harper Lee, but communicated through her Monroeville attorney, Tonja Carter, and literary agent Andrew Nurnburg.

Best-seller: After the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee did not publish again

However, slamming the allegations of coercion,a spokesman for the publishing house claims Lee said: 'I'm alive and kicking and happy as h**l with the reactions to Watchman.'

The novel, called Go Set A Watchman, was written before To Kill A Mockingbird but was rejected by publishers who set her to work on the novel that made her famous.

To Kill A Mockingbird, set around a rape trial in the racially-divided Deep South of the US, has sold more than 40 million copies since it was published in 1960.

Its central characters, Scout, her brother Jem and their lawyer father Atticus, were brought to life in a 1962 film starring Gregory Peck.

The new book revolves around the now-adult Scout's return to her native Alabama from New York to visit her father.

A spokesman for her publisher said: 'Harper Lee still enjoys reading and uses a magnifying machine from the New York Institute for the Blind to read books, newspapers and documents.'

Go Set A Watchman will be published on July 14 by William Heinemann, which was the original UK publisher of To Kill A Mockingbird.

The publisher says Carter came upon the manuscript at a 'secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Burnham said during a telephone interview that he had known both Carter and Nurnburg for years and was 'completely confident' Lee was fully involved in the decision to release the book.

'We've had a great deal of communication with Andrew and Tonja,' said Burnham, adding that Nurnburg had met with her recently and found her 'feisty and in very fine spirits.

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