Samuel Pinkus

Harper Lee has agreed for To Kill a Mockingbird to be made available as an ebook and digital audiobook, filling one of the biggest gaps in the digital library.

In a rare public statement released through her publisher, HarperCollins, Lee said: "I'm still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries. I am amazed and humbled that Mockingbird has survived this long. This is Mockingbird for a new generation."

The announcement came almost a year after she sued her former literary agent Samuel Pinkus to regain rights to her novel.

Author Nelle Harper Lee and literary agent Samuel Pinkus have reached an "agreement in principle" to settle a copyright lawsuit the famed author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" brought against him in May, a lawyer for Pinkus said Friday. "The parties reached a mutually satisfactory resolution and everybody would like at this point to put it behind them," said attorney Vincent Carissimi of the Pepper Hamilton firm.

Harper Lee, the 87-year-old author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” sued her literary agent, claiming he took advantage of her age and infirmity to deprive her of royalties from the novel.

Lee, of Monroeville, Alabama, sued Samuel Pinkus, the agent, and others seeking to ensure her ownership of the copyright to the 1960 novel and to compel forfeiture of the agent’s commissions, according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in New York.