Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone with the Wind

By Marianne Walker

Book Overview

Based on almost 200 previously unpublished letters and extensive interviews with their closest associates, Walker's biography of Margaret Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh, offers a new look into a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 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1561456179
• ISBN13: 9781561456178
• Release Date: June 2011
• Publisher: Peachtree Publishing Company Inc.
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

Margaret Mitchell Love Story

I felt that Margaret Mitchell's family was part of my own, and hated to see the book end. Am reading it now for the second time. Would love to communicate with Marianne Walker, direct. Just finished reading Darden Asbury Pyron's SOUTHERN DAUGHTER and it has made me so MAD. There are so many contradictions in it with the Walker version and I choose to believe Marianne! As you can see, I am a devoted Margaret Mitchell fan and have tried to read every thing I could throughout the years. I look forward to learning if Marianne Walker is available to the "general" public, like me.

Not just for GWTW fans! This books is truly interesting.

I have been a GWTW fan since I was 12. This book is a must for GWTW fans and anyone else as well. This book gives us a peek into the writing process and what instant fame and forture can do to a person. It also tells us of interesting facts about Margaret Mitchell, her husband John, and their families. This story is told partially through letters saved by friends and families. A wonderful insight to that era of GWTW's initial popularity.