Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949), popularly known as Margaret Mitchell was an American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her novel, Gone with the Wind, published in 1936. The novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 28 million copies (see list of best-selling books). 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.^[1] Image File history File links Margaret_Mitchell_3. ... For other uses, see Alias. ... is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Äž: For the film, see: 1900 (film). ... This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ... For other uses of terms redirecting here, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation) Motto In God We Trust(since 1956) (From Many, One; Latin, traditional) Anthem The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City National language English (de facto)1 Demonym American... is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Grady Memorial Hospital, frequently referred to as Grady Hospital or simply Grady, is the largest hospital in the state of Georgia, and is the public hospital for the city of Atlanta. ... This article is about work. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or content. ... A romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. ... A historical novel a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author. ... Shane Bolks AKA Shana Galen (her pen name) is an American author of contemporary fiction (chick lit) and historical romance novels. ... is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Äž: For the film, see: 1900 (film). ... is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956–present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic  - President George W. Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized... For other uses, see Author (disambiguation). ... The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... For the film, see Gone with the Wind (film). ... Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The frontispiece to the 1611 first edition of the King James Bible This page provides lists of best-selling single-volume books, book series, authors, and childrens books of all time and in any language. ... Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel of the same name. ... ... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ...

Life

Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Eugene Mitchell, a lawyer, and Mary Isabelle Stephens, a suffragist of Irish Catholic origin. Mitchell's brother, Stephens, was four years her senior. She often used the nickname "Peggy."^{[citation needed]} Her childhood was spent in the laps of Civil War veterans and of her maternal relatives, who had lived through the Civil War.^{[citation needed]} This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ... For the fish called lawyer, see Burbot. ... Suffragette with banner, Washington DC, 1918 The title of suffragette was given to members of the womens suffrage movement in the United Kingdom and United States, particularly in the years prior to World War I. The name was the Womens Social and Political Union (founded in 1903). ... Irish Catholics are persons of predominantly Irish descent who adhere to the Roman Catholic faith. ... Combatants United States of America (Union) Confederate States of America (Confederacy) Commanders Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee Strength 2,200,000 1,064,000 Casualties 110,000 killed in action, 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded 93,000 killed in action, 258,000 total...

After graduating from Washington Seminary (now The Westminster Schools), 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 Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 (Mitchell later 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 Plantation). The Westminster Schools is a private secondary school in Atlanta, Georgia. ... Smith College is a private, independent womens liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. ... In education, certification, counselling, and many other fields, a test or exam (short for examination) is a tool or technique intended to measure students expression of knowledge, skills and/or abilities. ... The household is the basic unit of analysis in many microeconomic and government models. ... Mom and Mommy redirect here. ... For other uses, see Death (disambiguation). ... The Spanish Flu Pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza Pandemic, the 1918 Flu Epidemic, and La Grippe, was an unusually severe and deadly strain of influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed some 25 million to 40 million people (possibly significantly more) world-wide in 1918 and 1919. ... This is about the disease typhoid fever. ... Scarlett OHara (full name Katie Scarlett OHara Hamilton Kennedy Butler) of French-Irish ancestry is the protagonist in Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name. ... Tara, the fictional plantation found in Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, was located near Jonesborough (now Jonesboro), Georgia. ...

Shortly afterward, she defied the conventions of her class and times by taking a job at the Atlanta Journal, where she wrote a weekly column for the newspaper's Sunday edition as one of the first woman columnists at the South's largest newspaper. Mitchell's first professional writing assignment was an interview with an Atlanta socialite, whose couture-buying trip to Italy was interrupted by the Fascist takeover.^{[citation needed]} The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only major daily newspaper in Atlanta and its suburbs. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Fascist redirects here. ...

Mitchell married Red Upshaw in 1922, but they were divorced after it was revealed that he was a bootlegger. She later married Upshaw's friend, John Marsh, on July 4, 1925; Marsh had been best man at her first wedding and legend has it that both men courted Mitchell in 1921 and 1922, but Upshaw proposed first.^{[citation needed]} Rum-running is the business of smuggling or transporting of alcoholic beverages illegally, usually to circumvent taxation or prohibition. ... is the 185th day of the year (186th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Occupation

From 1922 to 1926, Mitchell wrote dozens of articles, interviews, sketches, and book reviews, including interviews with silent-screen star Rudolph Valentino, high-society murderer Harry K. Thaw, and a Georgia prisoner who made artificial flowers from scraps and sold them from his cell to support his family.^{[citation needed]} Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor, sex symbol, and early pop icon. ... Harry Kendall Thaw. ...

She also wrote profiles of prominent Georgia Civil War generals. The first of these were so popular in Atlanta, that her editors assigned her several more. Scholars believe that it is her research for the profiles that later led her to write Gone With the Wind.

Using Mitchell's scrapbooks from the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia, editor Patrick Allen collected 64 of the columns Mitchell considered her best work. They were published in 2000 under the title Margaret Mitchell, Reporter^[2]. UGA Main Library The University of Georgia (UGA) is the largest institution of higher learning in the U.S. state of Georgia. ...

Her portraits and personality sketches in particular show a promise of her skill to portray the kind of characters who made Gone With the Wind the second best-selling novel in history.^[3] Even as a supposedly neutral reporter, her irrepressible personality shines through. This collection of Mitchell's journalism transcends fact-gathering, and shows Mitchell as a young woman and a compelling snapshot of life in the Jazz Age South.

Writing Gone with the Wind

Mitchell is reported to have begun writing Gone With the Wind while bedridden with a broken ankle. Her husband, John Marsh, brought home historical books from the public library to amuse her while she recuperated. After she supposedly read all the historical books in the library, he told her, "Peggy, if you want another book, why don't you write your own?" She drew upon her encyclopedic knowledge of the Civil War and dramatic moments from her own life, and typed her epic novel on an old Remington typewriter. She originally called the heroine "Pansy O'Hara", and Tara was "Fontenoy Hall". She considered naming the novel Tote The Weary Load or Tomorrow Is Another Day.^[4] For a review of anatomical terms, see Anatomical position and Anatomical terms of location. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Underwood Five, were long time standards of government agencies, newsrooms, and sales offices. ...

Mitchell wrote for her own amusement, and with solid support from her husband, kept her novel secret from her friends. She hid the voluminous pages under towels, disguising them as a divan, hid them in her closets, and under her bed.^{[citation needed]} She wrote the last chapter first, and skipped around from chapter to chapter. Her husband regularly proofread the growing manuscript to help in continuity. By 1929, her ankle had healed, most of the book was written, and she lost interest in pursuing her literary efforts. This article should be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... Proofreading is reading a proof copy of text for the purpose of detecting errors. ... A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

While Mitchell used to say that her Gone With the Wind characters were not based on real people, modern researchers have found similarities to some of the people in her life, and people she knew or heard of. For example, the character Rhett Butler may have been modeled after her first husband. The last thing he said to her (supposedly) was, "My dear, I don't give a damn",^{[citation needed]} which is what Rhett says to Scarlett before he leaves her in the book, Frankly was added for the movie.

Publication

Mitchell lived as a modest Atlanta newspaperwoman until a visit from MacMillan publisher Harold Latham, who visited Atlanta in 1935. Latham was scouring the South for promising writers, and Mitchell agreed to escort him around Atlanta at the request of her friend, Lois Cole, who worked for Latham. Latham was enchanted with Mitchell, and asked her if she had ever written a book. Mitchell demurred. "Well, if you ever do write a book, please show it to me first!" Latham implored. Later that day, a friend of Mitchell, having heard this conversation laughed. "Imagine, anyone as silly as Peggy writing a book!" she said. Mitchell stewed over this comment, went home, and found most of the old, crumbling envelopes containing her disjointed manuscript. She arrived at The Georgian Terrace Hotel, just as Latham prepared to depart Atlanta. "Here," she said, "take this before I change my mind!"^{[citation needed]} Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately-held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ...

Latham bought an extra suitcase to accommodate the giant manuscript. When Mitchell arrived home, she was horrified over her impetuous act, and sent a telegram to Latham: "Have changed my mind. Send manuscript back."^{[citation needed]} But Latham had read enough of the manuscript to realize it would be a blockbuster. He wrote to her of his thoughts about its potential success. MacMillan soon sent her an advance check to encourage her to complete the novel — she had not composed a first chapter. She completed her work in March 1936. Telegraphy (from the Greek words tele = far away and grapho = write) is the long distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters, originally over wire. ... Blockbuster, as applied to film or theater, denotes a very popular and/or successful production. ... Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Gone With the Wind was published on June 30, 1936. The book was dramatized by David O. Selznick, and released three years later. The premiere of the film was held in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. Publishing is the activity of putting information in the public arena. ... is the 181st day of the year (182nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... David O. Selznick David Oliver Selznick (May 10, 1902–June 22, 1965), was one of the icon Hollywood producers of the Golden Age. ... Premiere, from French language première meaning first, generally means a first performance. Premieres for theatrical, musical, and other productions are often extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media attention. ... is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Death

Mitchell was struck by a speeding automobile as she crossed Peachtree Street at 13th Street with her husband, John Marsh, on her way to see the British film A Canterbury Tale at The Peachtree Art Theatre in August 1949. She died at Grady Hospital five days later without regaining consciousness. The driver, Hugh Gravitt, was an off-duty taxi driver. He was driving his personal vehicle at the time, but his occupation led to many erroneous references over the years to Mitchell’s having been struck by a taxi. Gravitt had been out on $5,450 bond, having been arrested for drunken driving. He had 23 previous traffic violations, according to the police.^{[citation needed]} This incident prompted Georgia Gov. Herman Talmadge to announce that the state would tighten regulations for licensing taxi drivers. ^[1] Peachtree and 10th at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Peachtree Street is the main north-south street of Atlanta, Georgia. ... A Canterbury Tale (1944) is a British film by the film-making team of Powell & Pressburger. ... For other uses, see August (disambiguation). ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Grady Memorial Hospital, frequently referred to as Grady Hospital or simply Grady, is the largest hospital in the state of Georgia, and is the public hospital for the city of Atlanta. ... Herman Eugene Talmadge (August 9, 1913 – March 21, 2002) was an American politician who served as Governor of the U.S. state of Georgia briefly in 1947 and again from 1948 to 1955, and as a U.S. Senator from 1957 until 1981. ...

Gravitt was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in prison. ^[5] His conviction was controversial because witnesses said Mitchell stepped into the street without looking, and her friends claimed she often did this.

She was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. Aerial map of Oakland Cemetery Oakland Cemetery is the oldest and largest cemetery, as well as one of the largest green spaces, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded as Atlanta Cemetery in 1850 on six acres (2. ...

The house where Mitchell lived while writing her manuscript is known today as The Margaret Mitchell House and located in Midtown Atlanta. A museum dedicated to Gone with the Wind lies a few miles north of Atlanta, in Marietta, Georgia. It is called "Scarlett On the Square", as it is located on the historic Marietta Square. It houses costumes from the film, screenplays, and many artifacts from Gone With the Wind including Mitchell's collection of foreign editions of her book. The house and the museum are major tourist destinations. The Margaret Mitchell House is an attraction of local and international interest in Midtown Atlanta. ... Midtown Atlanta is a district in Atlanta, Georgia situated between the commercial and financial district of downtown to the south and the affluent residential, shopping, and nightlife district of Buckhead to the north. ... For other uses, see Museum (disambiguation). ... Historic Downtown Marietta Marietta is a city located in central Cobb County, Georgia GR6, and is its county seat. ... Yarkand ladies summer fashions. ... Sample from a screenplay, showing dialogue and action descriptions. ... A cultural artifact is a human-made object which gives information about the culture of its creator and users. ... A tourist destination is a city, town or other area the economy of which is dependent to a significant extent on the revenues accruing from tourism. ...

Clayton County, the area just south of Atlanta and the setting for the fictional O'Hara plantation, Tara, maintains "The Road to Tara" Museum in the old railroad depot in downtown Jonesboro. Clayton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. ... Passengers bustle around the typical grand edifice of Londons Broad Street station in 1865. ... Jonesboro is a city located in Clayton County, Georgia. ...

For decades it was thought that Mitchell had only ever written one complete novel. (In fact, periodically claims are made that she never wrote it at all due to the lack of any other published work by her). But in the 1990s, a manuscript by Mitchell of a novel entitled Lost Laysen was discovered among a collection of letters Mitchell had given in the early 1920s to a suitor named Henry Love Angel. The manuscript had been written in two notebooks in 1916. In the 1990s, Angel's son discovered the manuscript and sent it to the Road to Tara Museum, which authenticated the work. A special edition of Lost Laysen — a romance set in the South Pacific — was edited by Debra Freer, augmented with an account of Mitchell and Angel's romance including a number of her letters to him, and published by the Scribner imprint of Simon & Schuster in 1996. For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... Lost Laysen is a novella written by Margaret Mitchell in 1916, although it was not published until 1996. ... For other uses, see Oceania (disambiguation). ... Jean-François Millet Le Semeur (The Sower) Simon & Schuster logo, circa 1961. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ...

Further reading

2.Pyron, Darden Asbury. Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell and the Making of Gone With the Wind (Oxford University Press, 1991)

External links

• Obituary, NY Times, August 17, 1949 Miss Mitchell, 49, Dead of Injuries
• New Georgia Encyclopedia (biographical entry)
• Margaret Mitchell timeline
• Margaret Mitchell's Gravesite

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