Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel Gone with the Wind, for which she won the National Book Award for Fiction for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. Long after her death, a collection of Mitchell's girlhood writings and a novella she wrote as a teenager, titled Lost Laysen, were published. A collection of newspaper articles written by Mitchell for The Atlanta Journal was republished in book form.
Mitchell in 1941
Photo of a young woman (likely Mitchell) on the front porch of Rural Home, circa 1920
Stereoscope card showing the business district on Peachtree Street ca. 1907. The Mitchells' new home was about 3 miles from here.
"The Dump", now the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum
Gone with the Wind (novel)
Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea". This historical novel features a coming-of-age story, with the title taken from the poem "Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae", written by Ernest Dowson.
First-edition cover
The Bonnie Blue Flag is an 1861 marching song that refers to the first unofficial flag of the Confederacy.
Mitchell worried the high $3.00 price would ruin its chance for success. By the time Mary Louise received this copy from Mother and Dad in December 1937, the novel was the top American fiction bestseller for the second year in a row.
1940 Women's Press Club skit in which Mammy Congress puts Scarlett O'Budgett into her corset before going to a 'lection party.
