Mitchell, Margaret Munnerly

(1900-1949)

   Author Margaret Mitchell was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She attended Smith College in 1918 but left the following year after the death of her mother. From 1922 to 1926, Mitchell wrote for the Atlanta Journal Sunday magazine. In 1936, she wrote the romantic epic novel of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, Gone with the Wind. An enormous best seller, the book won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. The 1939 film based on the book produced by David O. Selznick and starring English actress Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler won eight Oscars. Before she had the opportunity to publish more, Mitchell was struck and killed by an automobile in Atlanta.

   See also Cinema; Literature and theater.