Gone with the Wind

About the book

Published in 1936 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize the following year, Gone with the Wind follows Scarlett O’Hara, the headstrong daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, from the eve of the American Civil War through the war and the Reconstruction that followed. Her fixation on the gentle Ashley Wilkes and her clashes with the blockade-runner Rhett Butler run through the whole of the novel. Margaret Mitchell portrays Atlanta under siege and the collapse of the world Scarlett was raised in, and makes her a survivor of uncommon ruthlessness, determined to keep her family land at any cost. The novel was an immediate bestseller, and its sympathetic picture of the plantation South and its portrayal of enslaved people have also drawn lasting criticism.

Characters

• Scarlett O'Hara — Protagonist

  A strong-willed young woman from Tara whose determination is tested by war and its aftermath.

• Rhett Butler — Outsider

  A worldly, irreverent trader who sees through Scarlett's pretenses and shares her instinct for survival.

• Ashley Wilkes — Scarlett's ideal

  A reserved Southern gentleman whose attachment to an older way of life fascinates Scarlett.

• Melanie Hamilton — Ashley's wife

  A gentle but resolute woman whose generosity binds the principal characters together.

• Mammy — Member of the Tara household

  An enslaved woman who has raised Scarlett and speaks frankly about her behavior.

• Gerald O'Hara — Scarlett's father

  The Irish-born owner of Tara, deeply attached to his land and family.

• Ellen O'Hara — Scarlett's mother

  The dignified mistress of Tara, whose self-command Scarlett admires but struggles to imitate.

About the author

MM

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) was an American novelist, born in Atlanta, Georgia, where she grew up hearing the stories of relatives who had lived through the Civil War. She left Smith College after her mother’s death in 1919, and in the early 1920s wrote feature articles for The Atlanta Journal’s Sunday magazine. While recovering from an ankle injury in the mid-1920s she began work on a long novel of the war and Reconstruction, which she wrote over several years and kept largely private. Published in 1936 as Gone with the Wind, it became one of the best-selling novels ever written, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and was made into a celebrated film in 1939. It was the only novel she published. During the Second World War she worked for the Red Cross and the war bond drives. She died in 1949, after being struck by a car on Peachtree Street in Atlanta.