I first read Gone With The Wind when I was in middle school because it was the longest book I could find on my mother’s shelf. My mom was also a huge fan of the movie, so I wanted to know what the story was about. I remember being totally spellbound by the love story of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, enough to have then watched the movie more times than I can count.
Gone With The Wind is one of the most popular books of all time, and author Margaret Mitchell won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for her epic novel of the South. Why all the talk about this book? Because it’s Margaret Mitchell’s birthday today!
Margaret Mitchell was born on November 8, 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended Washington Seminary. When she returned home from school she got a job at the Atlanta Journal writing a newspaper column, becoming one of the first women columnists for that paper.
As a reporter, Mitchell interviewed a number of Civil War generals in Georgia, along with doing a whole host of other articles. She wrote Gone With The Wind while bed-ridden with a broken ankle. Some people say she based the character of Rhett Butler on her first husband. Mitchell died in 1949 after being struck by a car crossing the street. I wish this post ended more happily. But anyway, without further delay:
Happy Birthday, Margaret Mitchell!
This post is part of National Blog Posting Month for the month of November. You can find out more about NaBloPoMo here and view my NaBloPoMo profile page here. Thanks for reading!
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Such a great book–I didn’t know anything about Mitchell or her tragic end. Thanks for sharing.
Chain Reader: I didn’t know about her end either, or that she wrote for newspapers. I like doing these “Happy Birthday” posts because I learn stuff about authors that I didn’t even know!