The Margaret Mitchell Encyclopedia

The Pulitzer Prize Winning novel was the basis of the film, the first movie to win more than five Academy Awards. Margaret Mitchell did not write another novel after Gone With the Wind. Supporting the troops during World War II, assisting African-American students financially, serving in the American Red Cross, selling stamps and bonds, and helping others--usually anonymously--consumed her. This book reveals little-known facts about her. The Margaret Mitchell Encyclopedia documents her work and her life--her effect on Atlanta and the city's memorials to her, her residences, details of her death, and information about her family, the establishment of The Margaret Mitchell House against great odds, and her relationship with the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Junior League.

It includes little-known photographs of Margaret Mitchell from about to The Best Books of Check out the top books of the year on our page Best Books of Coldly, dispassionately she viewed him, the chill steel of the gun giving her confidence. She must not miss now—she would not miss—and she did not. Mitchell received encouragement from her English teacher, Mrs. Paisley, who recognized her writing talent.

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A sentence, she said, must be "complete, concise and coherent". Mitchell read the books of Thomas Dixon, Jr. A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire During her years at Washington Seminary, Mitchell's brother, Stephens, was away studying at Harvard College — , and he left in May to enlist in the army, about a month after the U. He set sail for France in April , participated in engagements in the Lagny and Marbache sectors, then returned to Georgia in October as a training instructor.

Stephens Mitchell thought college was the "ruination of girls". She saw education as Margaret's weapon and "the key to survival". Her mother chose Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts for Margaret because she considered it to be the best women's college in the United States. Upon graduating from Washington Seminary in June , Mitchell fell in love with a Harvard graduate, a young army lieutenant, Clifford West Henry, [78] who was chief bayonet instructor at Camp Gordon from May 10 until the time he set sail for France on July Before departing for France, he gave Mitchell an engagement ring.

On September 14, while she was enrolled at Smith College, Henry was mortally wounded in action in France and died on October The last stanza of Lieutenant Clifford W. Henry for bravery under fire during the World war. Henry repeatedly advanced in front of the platoon he commanded, drawing machine-gun fire so that the German nests could be located and wiped out by his men. Although wounded in the leg in this effort, his death was the result of shrapnel wounds from an air bomb dropped by a German plane.

Clifford Henry was the great love of Margaret Mitchell's life, according to her brother. Edee, March 26, , Mitchell wrote of Clifford that she had a "memory of a love that had in it no trace of physical passion". Mitchell had vague aspirations of a career in psychiatry, [86] but her future was derailed by an event that killed over fifty million people worldwide, the flu pandemic. Mitchell arrived home from college a day after her mother had died.

Knowing her death was imminent, May Belle Mitchell wrote her daughter a brief letter and advised her:. Give of yourself with both hands and overflowing heart, but give only the excess after you have lived your own life. An average student at Smith College, Mitchell did not excel in any area of academics.

She held a low estimation of her writing abilities. Even though her English professor had praised her work, she felt the praise was undue. Miss Mitchell was hostess at an informal buffet supper last evening at her home on Peachtree road, the occasion complimenting Miss Blanche Neel, of Macon, who is visiting Miss Dorothy Bates. Spring flowers adorned the laced covered table in the dining room. Miss Neel was gowned in blue Georgette crepe. Miss Mitchell wore pink taffeta. Miss Bates was gowned in blue velvet.

The Margaret Mitchell Encyclopedia

Margaret began using the name "Peggy" at Washington Seminary , and the abbreviated form "Peg" at Smith College when she found an icon for herself in the mythological winged horse, " Pegasus ", that inspires poets. The dance included a kiss with her male partner that shocked Atlanta "high society". Mitchell was, in her own words, an "unscrupulous flirt". She found herself engaged to five men, but maintained that she neither lied to or misled any of them. In April , Mitchell was seeing two men almost daily: He was readmitted in May, then 19 years old, and spent two months at sea before resigning a second time on September 1, Although her family disapproved, Peggy and Red married on September 2, ; the best man at their wedding was John Marsh, who would become her second husband.

The couple resided at the Mitchell home with her father. By December the marriage to Upshaw had dissolved and he left.

Mitchell suffered physical and emotional abuse, the result of Upshaw's alcoholism and violent temper. Upshaw agreed to an uncontested divorce after John Marsh gave him a loan and Mitchell agreed not to press assault charges against him. While still legally married to Upshaw and needing income for herself, [] Mitchell got a job writing feature articles for The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine.

The Margaret Mitchell Encyclopedia : Anita Price Davis :

She received almost no encouragement from her family or "society" to pursue a career in journalism, and had no prior newspaper experience. There had been some skepticism on the Atlanta Journal Magazine staff when Peggy came to work as a reporter. Debutantes slept late in those days and didn't go in for jobs. In an article that appeared on July 1, , Valentino Declares He Isn't a Sheik , [] she interviewed celebrity actor Rudolph Valentino , referring to him as "Sheik" from his film role. Less thrilled by his looks than his "chief charm", his "low, husky voice with a soft, sibilant accent", [] she described his face as "swarthy":.

His face was swarthy, so brown that his white teeth flashed in startling contrast to his skin; his eyes—tired, bored, but courteous. Mitchell was quite thrilled when Valentino took her in his arms and carried her inside from the rooftop of the Georgian Terrace Hotel. Many of her stories were vividly descriptive.

In an article titled, Bridesmaid of Eighty-Seven Recalls Mittie Roosevelt's Wedding , [] she wrote of a white-columned mansion in which lived the last surviving bridesmaid at Theodore Roosevelt 's mother's wedding:. The tall white columns glimpsed through the dark green of cedar foliage, the wide veranda encircling the house, the stately silence engendered by the century-old oaks evoke memories of Thomas Nelson Page 's On Virginia. The atmosphere of dignity, ease, and courtesy that was the soul of the Old South breathes from this old mansion In another article, Georgia's Empress and Women Soldiers , [] she wrote short sketches of four notable Georgia women.

One was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate , Rebecca Latimer Felton , a suffragist who held white supremacist views. The other women were: The article generated mail and controversy from her readers. Mitchell's journalism career, which began in , came to an end less than four years later; her last article appeared on May 9, Mitchell began collecting erotica from book shops in New York City while in her twenties.

The newlywed Marshes and their social group were interested in "all forms of sexual expression". Mitchell wrote a romance novella , Lost Laysen , when she was fifteen years old He died in and the novella remained undiscovered among some letters she had written to him until In Lost Laysen , Mitchell explores the dynamics of three male characters and their relationship to the only female character, Courtenay Ross, a strong-willed American missionary to the South Pacific island of Laysen.

The narrator of the tale is Billy Duncan, "a rough, hardened soldier of fortune", [] who is frequently involved in fights that leave him near death. Courtenay quickly observes Duncan's hard-muscled body as he works shirtless aboard a ship called Caliban. Courtenay's suitor is Douglas Steele, an athletic man who apparently believes Courtenay is helpless without him.

He follows Courtenay to Laysen to protect her from perceived foreign savages. The third male character is the rich, powerful yet villainous Juan Mardo. He leers at Courtenay and makes rude comments of a sexual nature, in Japanese nonetheless. Mardo provokes Duncan and Steele, and each feels he must defend Courtenay's honor. Ultimately Courtenay defends her own honor rather than submit to shame. Mitchell's half-breed [] antagonist, Juan Mardo, lurks in the shadows of the story and has no dialogue.

The reader learns of Mardo's evil intentions through Duncan:. They were saying that Juan Mardo had his eye on you—and intended to have you—any way he could get you! I always intended having you, one way or another. The "other way" is rape. They separated, and with the assistance of John Marsh, who had been best man at her wedding, Mitchell accepted a position as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine.

In the summer of , Mitchell and Marsh married. In the spring of , an ankle injury, aggravated by arthritis, led her to resign from the newspaper. She turned her attention to writing a novel about the Civil War and Reconstruction from a Southern point of view. She set the story in her native Georgia because she knew so much of its history from the family tales she had heard growing up; she also felt that Virginia had received too much attention in previous Civil War narratives.

Over a period of nine years, Mitchell worked at her novel sporadically, composing episodes out of sequence and often drafting multiple versions of single scenes. On a visit to Atlanta in the spring of , Latham persuaded Mitchell to submit her work in progress for consideration. Underestimating the work that would be required to complete the novel, Mitchell agreed to have it ready for publication the following spring.

She spent the next seven months in a frantic state as she endeavoured to complete the narrative, fact-check each of the historical details referenced in the novel, and decide on a title. She also was eager to find a better name for Pansy and proposed Scarlett as a replacement.

Cole initially rejected the suggestion, but she eventually agreed to let it stand.

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Fifty thousand copies were sold in one day; within six months, one million copies had been printed. The book went on to sell more copies than any other novel in U. By the turn of the 21st century, more than 30 million copies had been sold worldwide in more than 40 languages. She also was displeased about the shoddy wording of the contract she had signed with Selznick. Though unwilling to admit she had made a mistake by selling the rights so quickly, Mitchell resented the situation. She also worried that the film would not be true to her novel or live up to public expectations.

The film, starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable , premiered in Atlanta on December 15, , after an unprecedented period of advance promotion, including the highly publicized search for an actress to play Scarlett. The movie was an immediate box-office smash and, at the Academy Awards ceremony, won 8 of the 13 Oscars for which it was nominated and two special awards.

In gratitude, Selznick offered to give the author his Academy Award for best picture. For almost three decades, numerous rereleases in the United States and abroad kept the film atop the list of all-time moneymakers. As a result, she developed a reputation for being a recluse overwhelmed by her celebrity status.