Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone With the Wind
by Marianne Walker
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Description
Based on almost 200 previously unpublished letters and extensive interviews with their closest associates, Walker's biography of Margaret Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh, offers a new look into a devoted marriage and fascinating partnership that ultimately created a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. This edition of Walker's biography celebrates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Gone With the Wind in 1936. In lively extracts from their letters to family and friends, John show more and Margaret, who also went by Peggy, describe the stormy years of their courtship, their bohemian lifestyle as a young married couple, the arduous but fulfilling years when Peggy was writing her famous novel, the thrill of its acceptance for publication and its literary success, and the excitement of the making of the movie. In telling the private side of this twenty-four-year marriage, author Marianne Walker reveals a long-suspected truth: Gone With the Wind might have never been written were it not for John Marsh. He was Peggy's best friend and constant champion, and he became her editor, proofreader, researcher, business manager, and the inspiration and motivation behind her writing. At every point, including the turbulent years of Mitchell's first marriage to Red Upshaw, it was John who provided the intellectual stimulation, emotional support, and editorial insights that allowed Peggy to channel her talents into the creation of her astounding Civil War epic. From years of meticulous research, Marianne Walker details the intimate and moving love story between a husband and wife, and between a writer and her editor. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This was just a great book! It's long, but it's worth it. The book tells the story of the love between Margaret Mitchell (who wrote Gone with the Wind) and John Marsh. It's well-written and easy-to-read. It is also very well-researched and provides and excellent narrative of their lives together.
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Author Information
13 Works 117 Members
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- John Marsh; Margaret Mitchell
- Epigraph
- A Man of Character All my life I have been beset with Mitchells. My college sweetheart was named Mitchell; my new sweetheart, wife and eventually my widow is named Mitchell; my washerwoman for the past twenty-five years, who ... (show all)regards us as her children and during the period of the war scarcities, gives us presents of kleenex and other rare items, is a Mitchell; the company where I work has at least a dozen Mitchells in prominent positions; the firm of accountants who handle Peggy's bookkeeping is Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co., and the man in their organization who works on her books is a Mitchell, but not related to their Peat, Marwick. Mitchell. And now my new boss is a Mitchell who was born in Maine almost on the Canadian line, moved to South America in his young manhood, but was inevitably drawn to Atlanta by the destiny which surrounds me with Mitchells. I might add that most of them are pretty fine folks. I'm just curious as to why I should collide with them at every turn of my life. ---John Marsh to his mother, spring 1945
- Dedication
- For the man in my life: Ulvester Walker
And in loving memory of my parents, Joseph D. and Rose Spatafora Cascio - First words
- In Atlanta's Old Oakland Cemetery, after the funeral service for Margaret Mitchell on August 17, 1949, family members urged her husband to go home and rest.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But Margaret Mitchell was Mrs. John R. Marsh....He was there, with calm judgment, quiet admiration, whole souled devotion.
Classifications
- Genres
- Biography & Memoir, Fiction and Literature, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 813.52 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1900-1945
- LCC
- PS3525 .I972 .Z94 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1900-1960
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 93
- Popularity
- 345,323
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.20)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 2
