Gone with the Wind for 75 years!

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind

Margaret Mitchell penned Gone With the Wind 75 years ago. Within the first six months of publication, the novel sold one million copies and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Hollywood fell in love with the story and brought it to life on the big screen in 1939.

The world fell in love too with the spirited and sassy Scarlett O’Hara played by Vivian Leigh and dashing and debonair Rhett Butler played by Clark Gable. 

At the book's core is its strong heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, the ultimate survivor. As author Pat Conroy notes in the forward to the 75th-anniversary edition of the book, "Scarlett springs alive in the first sentence of the book and holds the narrative center for over a thousand pages. She is a fabulous, pixilated, one-of-a-kind creation, and she does not utter a dull line in the entire book. She makes her uncontrollable self-centeredness seem like the most charming thing in the world and one feels she would be more than a match for Anna Karenina, Lady Macbeth or any of the women of Tennessee Williams."

Margaret Mitchell, a little-known Atlanta newswoman, took nine years to write this giant of a book, and a further eight months to check all the historical references in it. She wrote it bedridden after a problem in her leg. Gone With the Wind was Mitchell’s first — and only — full-length book. Mitchell had a fairly turbulent romantic life — marrying twice in a short span. How much of Scarlett did Mitchell see in herself?

In August 1949, Mitchell was hit by a car while crossing the road in Atlanta with her husband John Marsh. They were on their way to watch A Canterbury Tale. She died in hospital five days later and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.

Gone With the Wind is a true timeless classic that still holds hearts of fans today. Take an afternoon and show your kids some real Hollywood glamour. As far as I'm considered Gone with the Wind classifies as general knowlegde and must be viewed at least once in your life....no matter what age you are!!!