Pretty Southern

Tag: Gone With the Wind

  • Margaret Mitchell’s Great Love

    “Gone With The Wind” was 1,037 pages which took its author, Margaret Mitchell a decade to write. Then it took 517 pages to correctly document the life and times of this great Southern writer and the romance between Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh.

    In “Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone With the Wind,” biographer Marianne Walker researched thousands of papers containing correspondence from the Marsh husband & wife team. Letter to family, friends, business associates, and even fans were unearthed to properly tell the tale of this power couple from their start to an untimely finish. Miss Walker’s effort to research the true history behind the Marshes life together comes to fruition in this biography.

    For every writer is only brilliant once someone believes in her talent. Heaven cast Mr. John Robert Marsh of Maysville, Ky., to play the editor, lover, business manager and most devoted husband to Margaret Mitchell. the South has ever known. The reader becomes enamored with the fascinating tale which began in Atlanta during Prohibition times. It’s thought the first time John Marsh lay eyes on Margaret “Peggy” Mitchell in a speakeasy he instantly became enamored with her.

    Then she strung him along while dating many other men and eventually ended up marrying his roommate, Red Upshaw. But it was an ill-fated marriage, as Peggy was truly meant to be with John. He was by her side throughout her tumultuous early 20s and gave Peggy her typewriter which would berth her famous work. On that day, he said to her “Madam…I greet you on the beginning of a great new career.”

    “Gone With The Wind” sold more than 30 million copies, which makes Margaret Mitchell not only the greatest writer the South has ever known, but also one of the most popular authors in the world. And with such great popularity comes equal responsibility. After giving birth to their labor of love, the Marshes took on the burden of maintaining the copyrights in more than 20 countries because at the time the publisher refused to do so. The Marshes were pioneers in the foreign copyright industry right out of their own apartment in Atlanta. And Walker does a fantastic job of touting all their trials and tribulations. Because above all, John and Peggy’s love for one another never faltered. Publisher’s Weekly calls Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone With the Wind “… a moving love story of symbiotic union that lasted 24 years.  A remarkable piece of detective work.”

    The last lines of the book have the most profound impact and will bring tears to the end of this biography. “He was there, with calm judgement, quiet admiration, whole souled devotion.” The love John Marsh had for his wife could not be summed up any better.

    More information about the biography can be found here. Have any of y’all read this powerful work? If so, please let us know your thoughts in a comment below.

  • Margaret Mitchell: Media Maven

    Margaret Mitchell: Media Maven

    margaret-mitchell

    The best storyline of Gone With the Wind is neither about Scarlett O’Hara nor Rhett Butler — it’s the author Margaret Mitchell’s very own life story.

    Born in Atlanta on Nov. 8, 1900, Margaret Mitchell spent her childhood listening to the war stories of Confederate veterans. They told her everything about the Civil War except that the South had lost. She found that out when she was 10 years old.

    Before leaving for Smith College in 1918, Mitchell fell in love With Lieutenant Clifford Henry, a Harvard undergraduate training for active duty in World War I at Camp Gordon in Atlanta. In 1919, shortly after she learned Henry had been killed in action in France, her mother became ill and Margaret rushed home. She did not make it back in time to see her mother, and she stayed on to take care of her father and brother.

    Mitchell had many suitors, but Red Upshaw and John Marsh came to the fore as serious potential husbands. She got a job as the first woman to cover hard news for The Atlanta Journal, and married Upshaw. The marriage was short – Upshaw was a bootlegger and alcoholic. John Marsh, her other serious suitor, returned. They married and remained so until her death.

    Mitchell was forced to quit her job at The Atlanta Journal because of problems With her ankles and feet. Bedridden, she read voraciously and began work on what her friends called ‘the great American novel.’

    She showed the finished manuscript, all 1,037 pages of it, to a visiting New York publisher, and on June 10, 1936, Gone With the Wind was published.

    By October of that year, Gone With the Wind had sold one million copies, and David O. Selznick bought the rights for $50,000. At the time, it was the highest price ever paid by Hollywood for the rights to a first novel.

    Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. In 1939, Atlanta hosted the premier of one of the most popular movies of all time, Gone With the Wind, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

    On August 11, 1949, while crossing Peachtree and 13th streets close to her home, Margaret Mitchell was struck by an off-duty cab driver, and died five days later. She was buried in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery with the rest of her family.

    Margaret Mitchell Grave Historic Oakland Cemetery

    Many years earlier, in an interview with her publisher, she was asked what  Gone With the Wind was about. She said ‘If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently, just as able, strong and brave go under?

    “It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive – others don’t. What qualities are in those who fight their way thought triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under. I only know that survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption.’

    “So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn’t.” (1936)

    Gumption a.k.a. spirited initiative and resourcefulness. Much like her heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, Margaret Mitchell had gumption in spades.