Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood presents the first comprehensive overview of how this iconic novel became an international phenomenon that has managed to sustain the public's interest for seventy-five years. Various Mitchell biographies and several compilations of her letters tell part of the story, but, until now, no single source has revealed the full saga. This entertaining account of a literary and pop culture phenomenon tells how Mitchell's book was developed, marketed, distributed, and otherwise groomed for success in the 1930s—and the savvy measures taken since then by the author, her publisher, and her estate to ensure its longevity.
Ellen F. Brown is a rare book dealer and freelance writer specializing in stories about antiquarian books and the rare book industry. She lives in Richmond, Virginia. John Wiley, Jr. owns one of the largest collections of Gone With the Wind memorabilia in private hands, including every American edition of the novel and over 600 foreign editions. He writes a quarterly newsletter, The Scarlett Letter, for GWTW fans and collectors.
Table of Contents
Cast of Characters ix
Note About the Second Edition xi
Introduction 1
1 This Woman Has Something 5
1900-August 1935
2 A Manuscript of the Old South 27
August 1935-January 1936
3 In Cold Type 41
February-March 1936
4 A Book with Definite Possibilities 57
April-May 1936
5 Fanning the Flame 75
May-June 1936
6 The Making of a Colossal Upper-case Success 91
June-July 1936
7 That Book About the Wind 105
August-October 1936
8 The Reluctant Celebrity 119
Fall 1936
9 Gone With the Wind, Inc. 137
December 1936-April 1937
10 Defending Scarlett's Honor 153
Spring-December 1931
11 From Greenland's Icy Mountains to India's Coral Strand 175
Sometimes it seems like classic novels have just always existed; they were there when most of us were born, and seem like eternal aspects of daily life. But behind every novel is a second story, a sometimes hidden tale about how that novel came to be. These stories-behind-the-stories are often just as fascinating as the novels […]
Sometimes it seems like classic novels have just always existed: they were there before most of us were born, and seem an eternal aspect of the cultural landscape. But behind every novel is a second story, a sometimes-hidden one about how that novel came to be. And these stories-behind-the-stories are sometimes just as fascinating as the novels they produced. Here […]
