Book review: Behind the writing of "Gone With the Wind"

Drawing on correspondence and resources previously unavailable to researchers, the authors trace the origins of the novel from Mitchell's childhood, immersed in stories about the Civil War, to its emergence as a pop culture phenomenon. Along the way, they debunk rumors about who really unearthed and edited the manuscript and they attempt to answer the question of whether Scarlett and Rhett are ever reunited.

Mitchell began writing the novel in 1926 after an ankle injury forced her to quit her job at The Atlanta Journal. Sketching out the plot, she used a technique she had learned as a reporter and worked out the ending first.

"I had every detail clear in my mind before I sat down to the typewriter," she said. That was the best way to write a book, she added, because "then your characters can't get away from you and misbehave, and do things you didn't intend them to do in the beginning."

She had grown up hearing stories from Civil War veterans, but she still researched tirelessly to capture the sights, sounds and smells of a land during and after the war.

With the editing help of her husband, John Marsh, Mitchell basically finished the manuscript in 1929. She continued to rework chapters for the next several years, however, and was reluctant to show it to any publishers. When her friend, Lois Dwight Cole, the office manager of the Atlanta branch of the Macmillan Company, dropped by her apartment, Mitchell tossed a towel over the manuscript to hide it. Cole knew she was writing a book, but she was not allowed to see it.

In 1933, Cole heard that Mitchell had finished the manuscript except for the first chapter and asked to read it. Still Mitchell refused. Finally, in the spring of 1935, Macmillan editor Harold Latham visited Atlanta to scout for new literary talent. After much agonizing, Mitchell collected an armful of her chapters, many of them unnumbered and disorganized, and gave them to Latham at an Atlanta hotel. Which hotel is still not clear. Some biographers say it was the Georgian Terrace; others say it was the Biltmore or the Ansley.

Even after delivering the manuscript to Latham, Mitchell had second thoughts and asked him to send it back. Afraid that she might offer it to another publisher, he ignored her request and agreed to publish the novel. On Aug. 7, 1935, she signed a contract and received a $250 for the first installment of her advance.

Propelled by an unprecedented publicity campaign, "Gone With the Wind" soared to the top of best seller lists and Peggy Mitchell was thrust reluctantly into a glaring spotlight. When the movie deal with David O. Selznick was announced, the rumors about the reclusive author escalated. She read outlandish reports that she had a wooden leg, had bought an antebellum Georgia plantation and that her marriage was on the rocks. Most troubling was the speculation that she had not written the novel. What had begun as a dream come true quickly turned into a nightmare.

Brown, a freelance writer, and Wiley, publisher of the quarterly newsletter "The Scarlett Letter," meticulously address the highs and lows of Mitchell's life. They depict the frenzy that swept through Atlanta during the premiere of the movie and the tumultuous years after until Mitchell's untimely death at the age of 48. But the book continues into the present to explore the issues of racism, the controversies over sequels and the plagiarism suit of Alice Randall's "The Wind Done Gone."

Entertaining and thoroughly researched, "Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind" provides fascinating new insights into the woman who created one of the world's most famous and enduring couples.