Margaret Mitchell: Author of Gone With the Wind

She broke her ankle and made a fortune

Margaret Mitchell only wrote one novel that anyone has ever heard about, but that one (“Gone With The Wind”) was enough to make her name universally known, not least because of the blockbuster motion picture that was made from the story.

She was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1900. Her father was an attorney and her mother, named Maybelle, was a woman of Irish ancestry who apparently had flame-red hair and a temperament to match. It would appear that much of the character of Scarlett O’Hara derived from Margaret’s mother.

Margret Mitchell grew up in a town that contained many people who remembered the events of the American Civil War, during which, in 1864, Atlanta had been evacuated and most of the buildings destroyed by fire. The people had had to start all over again after the War was over.

Margaret experienced tragedies of own during her young adulthood. Her fiancé was killed during the First World War in 1918, her mother died in 1919 and her father suffered severe health problems soon afterwards. Margaret was therefore unable to complete her studies at Smith College.

She married in 1920, but her husband treated her with cruelty and they divorced in 1924. The character of Rhett K Butler is…