GONE WITH THE WIND - MARGARET MITCHELL

         Gone with the Wind is a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. It is often placed in the literary sub-genre of the historical romance novel. However, it has been argued the novel is a "near miss" and does not contain all of the elements of the romance genre, making it simply a historical novel.

         The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia, and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. It depicts the experiences of Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to come out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.

          Margaret Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind in 1926 to pass the time while recovering from an auto-crash injury that refused to heal. In April 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor who was looking for new fiction, read what she had written and saw that it could be a best-seller. After Latham agreed to publish the book, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references, and rewrote the opening chapter several times. Mitchell and her husband John Marsh, a copy editor by trade, edited the final version of the novel. Mitchell wrote the book's final moments first, and then wrote the events that led up to it.

As to what became of her lovers, Rhett and Scarlett, after the novel ended, Mitchell did not know, and said, "For all I know, Rhett may have found someone else who was less difficult."

Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. The book was adapted into a 1939 American historical epic film (see Gone With the Wind (film)). Gone With the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.