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January 2014 Guest Editor Jodi Picoult on Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I memorized huge passages when I was twelve and pretended to be both Rhett and Scarlett (hence I had no boyfriend till I was 15…). I loved that Margaret Mitchell had created a world out of words, and I wanted to do the same thing.
The LoveReading view...
First published in 1936, this book is a historical novel set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War. It tells the love story of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.
February 2011 Guest Editor Carmen Reid on Margaret Mitchell...
Gone With The Wind must be the grandmammie of romantic novels. Yes it’s over 1000 pages long and you know the story already because you’ve watched the epic film over many a bank holiday. But February strikes me as the perfect month to turn the telly off, go to bed early and wade through this Southern Civil war blockbuster. Tighten your crinoline, practise saying: ‘Oh Ashley!’ And ‘No, no, Rhett!’ And vow to the skies that you will never, ever be poor again! Realise why it’s so terrifically good that Margaret snagged herself a Pulitzer Prize in 1937.
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Gone With the Wind Synopsis
The pampered daughter of a wealthy Georgian plantation owner of Irish descent,
sixteen-year-old Scarlett O'Hara soon realizes that young men can't resist her
charms, despite her forthright manners and her refusal to embrace her mother's
ladylike ways. Her romantic intrigues lead her to an early marriage, but when the
war between the Union and the Southern States breaks out and she is left a young
widow, Scarlett's life is turned upside down, and she finds herself embroiled,
together with the world surrounding her, in a long struggle for survival.
Both a coming-of-age tale and a historical epic, Gone with the Wind is regarded as
one of the great American novels, and is perhaps one of the most popular stories in
the Western canon. Famously inspiring the iconic 1939 Oscar-winning film starring
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and Clark Gable as the rakish but cynical Rhett Butler, it is
Margaret Mitchell's only published novel, and a living testament to the irrepressible
resilience of the American spirit.
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About Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia into a family passionately interested in American history. She grew up in an atmosphere of stories about the Civil War which she committed to paper in the ten years following her marriage in 1925. The result was Gone With The Wind, first published in 1936. It won the Pulitzer Prize, sold over ten million copies, was translated in eighteen languages, and was one of the most successful films ever made starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. Gone With The Wind was her only published work. She died in 1949.
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