Is Latin phrase in TKAM a hidden reference to Capote's 'In Cold Blood'?

An in-depth reading of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” often results in hidden surprises and sometimes leads down deep rabbit holes.

My favorite part of the book is the section that details the climactic events on Halloween 1935. Many readers will remember that Jem and Scout have to walk to the school that night because Scout had to be in a school play. We come to learn that the name of that play is “Maycomb County Ad Astra Per Aspera.”

We learn the name of the play that night when the play’s author, Mrs. Grace Merriweather, announces this from a lectern, situated beside the Maycomb County High School band. After she announces the play’s title, a bass drum is struck, prompting her to continue. “That means,” said Mrs. Merriweather, translating for the rustic elements, “from the mud to the stars.”

Merriweather may have been a little off because various sources give different translations of the Latin phrase “Ad Astra per Aspera.” Most translate it as meaning “Through hardships to the stars.” Other sources say it means “To the stars through difficulties” or “A rough road leads to the stars.”

Here’s where it gets really interesting. “Ad Astra per Aspera” is the official state motto of Kansas. Many Harper Lee fans will remember that Lee traveled to Kansas with Truman Capote to help him research his famous nonfiction novel, “In Cold Blood,” which was about the 1959 Clutter family murders in Holcombe, Kansas.

Was the addition of “Ad Astra per Aspera” in “To Kill a Mockingbird” a nod to Capote and “In Cold Blood”? A close look at the time line of the publication of both books may give us a clue.

Sources say that Lee delivered the original, unpolished manuscript for what would become “To Kill a Mockingbird” to literary agent Maurice Crain in the spring of 1957. The now-defunct publishing house of J.B. Lippincott Co. eventually bought the manuscript, which was not suitable for publication at that point. Over the course of the next two years, Lee worked with editor Tay Hohoff, producing multiple drafts of the novel until they arrived at the version that was published on July 11, 1960.

About seven months prior to that, two ex-cons named Perry Smith and Richard Hickock murdered four members of the wealthy Clutter family on Nov. 15, 1959. When Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote learned of the killings, he developed a morbid fascination for the case and decided to write about it. Before the final version of “To Kill a Mockingbird” was produced, Lee accompanied Capote to Kansas in late 1959 and helped Capote interview a wide variety of people associated with the crime, producing thousands of pages of notes that would form the basis for Capote’s book.

Even though Capote’s book wouldn’t be published until Jan. 17, 1966 (nine months after Smith and Hickock were executed), it is possible that Lee took note of the Kansas state motto during her time there and decided to insert it into the final draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The only way to be sure would be to examine the early drafts of “To Kill a Mockingbird” to see if she included the Latin phrase before her trip to Kansas. Whether or not these early drafts of “To Kill a Mockingbird” still exist out there in the world somewhere is a question that remains to be answered.