This year marks not only the 75th anniversary of the Okanagan Regional Library, but also for the classic novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Since its original publication in 1936, this well-known title has been tremendously popular, and is considered one of the best-selling books of all time.
In May, Scribner published a commemorative trade paperback edition of Gone with the Wind featuring the book’s original jacket art, which is also carried on the novel’s e-book edition.
Throughout May and June, there are events in Georgia, at the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, the Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum, and at the Road to Tara Museum in Jonesboro.
When the novel was originally released in June 1936, it sold 176,000 copies, but within a year of winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, this number had increased to more than a million.
Then came the film in 1939, starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, which pushed sales over the two million-copy mark. At the time, Gone with the Wind had been translated into 16 languages. Today that number has more than doubled.
Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on Nov. 8, 1900. As a child, she was fascinated by the Civil War stories she heard from Confederate veterans and used her imagination to write, produce, and direct plays, casting her friends, and inviting the neighborhood to the porch performances.
Mitchell entered Smith College in the fall of 1918 but soon suffered major setbacks. First, she received news that her fiancé was killed in action in the First World War. The following January, her mother died during a flu epidemic. Mitchell left college to take charge of the Atlanta household of her father and her older brother, Stephens.
Two years later the free-spirited and headstrong Mitchell married Berrien “Red” Upshaw, an ex-football player and bootlegger. Financial pressures led her to begin writing for the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine where she earned $25 per week.
Their stormy marriage ended in divorce in 1924 and within a year she married John Marsh, a former suitor and an editor at the paper. Soon after, Mitchell left her job to convalesce from a series of injuries, and it was during this period she began writing the book that would make her famous.
Following the publication of Gone with the Wind and the release of the motion picture, Mitchell had the financial resources to support philanthropic interests, including numerous social service organizations in Atlanta and medical scholarships for Morehouse College students.
During the Second World War, the USS Atlanta sank during battles off Guadalcanal. Mitchell led war bond drives for funds to build a replacement ship, raising $65 million in only 60 days.
She christened this USS Atlanta in February 1944.
On Aug. 11, 1949, while crossing a street in Atlanta, Mitchell was struck by an off-duty cab driver. She died five days later and was buried in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery.
Gone with the Wind has been described as “a story that speaks directly to the heart, and is as vibrantly readable today as it was in 1936.”
There are a number of ways to enjoy this classic through the Okanagan Regional Library: you can read the book, listen to it on CD, and view the feature film.
–– Maureen Curry is the chief librarian for the Vernon branch of the Okanagan Regional Library. Her column, Off the Shelf, runs in The Morning Star every second Sunday.
