Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8 1900 - August 16 1949) was the American author who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her immensely successful novel, Gone with the Wind, that was published in 1936. The novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more copies than any other hard-cover book, apart from the Bible, and is reputed to be still selling at 200,000 copies a year. An American film adaptation, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and received a record-breaking number of Academy Awards.

Early life

Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her childhood, it seems, was spent in the laps of Civil War veterans, and her maternal relatives, who lived through the war, and the years to follow. They told her everything about the war, except that the Confederates had lost it. She was ten years old before making this discovery.

Related Topics:
Atlanta - Georgia - Civil War - Confederate

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She attended Smith College but withdrew, following her final exams in 1918. She returned to Atlanta to take over the household after her mother's death earlier that year from the great influenza pandemic of 1918 (and Mitchell used this pivotal scene, from her own life, to dramatize Scarlett's discovery of her mother's death from typhoid, when Scarlett returns to Tara). Shortly afterward, she joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal, where she wrote a weekly column for the newspaper's Sunday edition. Mitchell married Red Upshaw in 1922, but they were divorced after it was revealed that he was a bootlegger. She married Upshaw's friend, John Marsh, on July 4, 1925; legend has it that both men courted Mitchell in 1921 and 1922, but Upshaw proposed first.

Related Topics:
Smith College - Final exam - 1918 - Household - Mother - Death - Influenza - Pandemic - Typhoid - Scarlett - Tara - Staff - Atlanta Journal - Newspaper - 1922 - Bootlegger - July 4 - 1925 - 1921

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