Margaret Mitchell

American novelist and journalist.

• Born: November 8, 1900
• Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia
• Died: August 16, 1949
• Place of death: Atlanta, Georgia

Biography

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell, born in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 8, 1900, was the second child of Maybelle (Stephens) and Eugene Muse Mitchell, an attorney and president of the Atlanta Historical Society. Atlanta’s history meant Civil War history, and the perceptive young daughter of the Mitchell household developed a keen interest in this event and its lingering impact even as a child. What she later did with this lore caused perhaps the biggest splash in American publishing history.

Mitchell completed her elementary education in the Atlanta public school system, then attended Washington Seminary in Atlanta. In 1918 she entered Smith College and became engaged to marry Clifford Henry, but he died the same year in France while serving in World War I. In January, 1919, Mitchell had to leave college and return home when her mother died. In 1922, she started a career in journalism on the Atlanta Journal as "Peggy Mitchell." On September 1, 1922, she married Berrien K. Upshaw, who physically abused and then deserted her. After divorcing Upshaw on July 4, 1925, she married John R. Marsh, a power company executive, to whom she would later dedicate her book.

In 1926, a slow-healing sprained ankle caused her to resign from the newspaper. While recuperating, she began researching Civil War history for a novel, a rough draft of which she had finished and put aside by 1929. In 1935, she met Harold Latham, an editor at Macmillan Publishing Company, and he accepted the novel for publication. Its title taken from Ernest Dowson’s poem "Cynara," Gone with the Wind was published on June 30, 1936, and among the many awards which followed were the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and the American Booksellers’ Association award in the same year; Mitchell also was given an honorary MA degree from Smith College. The book was hugely successful, selling some two million copies in a single year (and fifty thousand in a single day). It continued to be a bestseller for years to come.

The book owes its immense popular appeal to its sustained narrative and the well-drawn characters. Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler become vivid personalities whose all-too-human emotions absorb readers. David Selznick’s film version of the novel premiered in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. It would go on to win eight Academy Awards and two special Oscars, further propelling Mitchell to unprecedented fame for a debut novelist. At times she struggled with her reputation, becoming viewed by some as a recluse. She spent considerable effort managing the publishing rights of her masterpiece, even influencing US copyright law regarding foreign publication of works.

For years Mitchell was content to have Gone with the Wind as her only work, but by the late 1940s she was reportedly preparing to begin another novel. However, no other book would emerge in her lifetime, which was cut tragically short. On a summer evening in 1949 she was struck by a taxicab on an Atlanta street and died shortly thereafter at the age of forty-eight. Her death was mourned worldwide, even drawing commentary from US president Harry Truman.

Mitchell's estate later authorized a sequel to Gone with the Wind, which received poor reviews from critics but sold well. Then, in 1996, Mitchell's novella Lost Laysen, written in 1916 and thought lost, was published. Collections of her earlier writings, including her work as a journalist, would also later be published in book form. In the twenty-first century, several novels by other writers further built on the world of Gone with the Wind, including the parody work The Wind Done Gone (2001) by Alice Randall, told from the perspective of a slave owned by the O'Hara family. Mitchell's original novel, and its film adaptation, remain iconic works and have even deeply influenced public perception of the Civil War and Southern life.

Author Works

Long Fiction:

Gone with the Wind, 1936

Short Fiction:

Lost Laysen, 1996 (Debra Freer, editor)

Before Scarlett: Girlhood Writings of Margaret Mitchell, 2000 (Jane Eskridge, editor)

Nonfiction:

Margaret Mitchell: Reporter, 2000 (Patrick Allen, editor)

Bibliography

Edwards, Anne. Road to Tara: The Life of Margaret Mitchell. Ticknor and Fields, 1983. Early biography superseded by Walker and Pyron.

Farr, Finis. Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta: The Author of "Gone with the Wind." William Morrow, 1965. Early biography superseded by Walker and Pyron.

Hanson, Elizabeth R. Margaret Mitchell. Twayne, 1990. A basic critical biography. Includes a bibliography of critical works.

Pyron, Darden Asbury. Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell. Oxford University Press, 1991. A very thorough and well-researched scholarly biography.

Pyron, Darden Asbury, ed. Recasting: "Gone with the Wind" in American Culture. University of Florida Press, 1983. A collection of critical essays on Gone with the Wind as a literary work and as a force in popular culture.

Pyron, Darden Asbury. Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell. Oxford University Press, 1991. A major biography of Mitchell.

Walker, Marianne. Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind "Gone with the Wind." 1993. Reprint. Peachtree Press, 2000. Drawing on previously unavailable personal papers, Walker argues that Gone with the Wind was, in many ways, a collaborative effort of Mitchell and her husband.