Books

First edition, first printing, first issue dust jacket, signed by the author on the front free endpaper. Mitchell ceased signing copies around six months following publication after being inundated with requests. She reaffirmed this stance weeks before her death in 1949: "I was forced to adopt a 'no autographing' policy and since that time I have not altered it" (cited in Harwell, p. 425). The first printing is dated May, rather than June, on the copyright page. Dust jackets in the first issue advertise this title on the rear panel in the second row of the second column. Mitchell's sole published novel received immediate acclaim and record-breaking sales, winning her the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and transforming her life from one of obscurity to international stardom. The famous film adaptation followed in 1939. Octavo. Original grey cloth, spine and front cover lettered and stamped with wind devices in dark blue, top edge pale brown, fore edge untrimmed. With supplied dust jacket. Housed in a custom red quarter morocco solander box. Spine toned, edges rubbed, contents clean; jacket rubbed, a couple of short closed tears, chips to fold ends and central spine panel, small loss to head of spine partially shaving lettering, spine folds neatly stabilized on verso, price-clipped: a very good copy in good jacket. Richard Harwell, ed., Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind Letters, 1936-1949, 1976.

Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to come out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.