Margaret Mitchell was an American novelist and journalist. She is best known for her 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1900 and died in 1949.
Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 8, 1900. Her father, Eugene Muse Mitchell, was a prominent local attorney and her mother, Mary Isabel Stephens Mitchell, was a homemaker. Mitchell had two older brothers, Stephen and Russell.
Mitchell showed an early interest in writing and began writing stories in her childhood. She attended Washington Seminary for girls in Atlanta and later studied at Smith College in Massachusetts. Mitchell dropped out of Smith after two years and returned to Atlanta.
In Atlanta, Mitchell worked as a journalist for the Atlanta Journal. She also wrote short stories and poems for various magazines. In 1926, she met John Marsh, a successful businessman. They married in 1925 and had one daughter, Margaret Julia Marsh, in 1927.
Mitchell spent the next decade working on her novel Gone with the Wind. The novel was published in 1936 and was an immediate bestseller. It has been translated into more than 30 languages and has sold millions of copies worldwide.
Gone with the Wind tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, a young woman who grows up during the American Civil War. The novel is set in Georgia and follows Scarlett's journey from a spoiled plantation owner's daughter to a tough and resourceful survivor.
Gone with the Wind won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. It was also adapted into a 1939 film starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. The film was a huge success and won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Mitchell died in a car accident in Atlanta in 1949. She was 48 years old.