Rare first edition of To Kill A Mockingbird found in Oxfam box

A copy of Harper Lee’s seminal 1960 work was discovered in a box of American books given to Oxfam’s bookshop in Portobello Road, west London.

It has been acquired by the British Library and will join the institution’s national collection.

Shop manager Olivia Haysman-Walker, who established the novel was a first US edition, said: “It could so easily have been missed.

“There were lots of books to work through in the donation, but we recognised To Kill A Mockingbird and thought it was worth taking a closer look.

“We realised quite quickly that we had something really special.

“The dust jacket showed its age, and although it was worn around the edges, the pages inside were in beautiful condition.

“It’s amazing to think that this book has passed through our Oxfam bookshop and into the national collection at the British Library.

“It really has been quite a journey, and it’s a lovely reminder, during Second Hand September, of the kind of treasures that can be hiding among the shelves and donations in our shops.”

Second Hand September is Oxfam’s annual campaign encouraging people to buy second-hand.

Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book tells the story of lawyer Atticus Finch as he defends Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of a raping a white woman.

Her story of racial injustice and childhood innocence, set in Alabama in 1934, has sold more than 40 million copies around the world and has been translated into 40 languages.

The US novelist, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, died in 2016 at the age of 89.