This Day in Literary History
November 8, 1900
Margaret Mitchell is born
On this day in 1900, Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind(1936), is born in Atlanta, Georgia.
From The History Channel:
Mitchell worked as a journalist for the Atlanta Journal for six years. She quit after an ankle injury limited her mobility, and she devoted herself to her novel about the South during and after the Civil War. Her tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the shallow Southern belle transformed into ruthless survivor during the war, became the biggest American publishing sensation of its day. The book sold 1 million copies in its first six months in print, 8 million by the time Mitchell died in 1949, and at least 25 million more to date.
