Was previously unaware of her life story. Such an auspicious beginning… and a tragic, unfair ending.
She wrote the most famous American novel of the century in secret—then spent the rest of her life wishing she hadn’t. Fame destroyed her.
Margaret Mitchell never meant to become famous. In fact, she spent years hiding the fact that she was writing a novel at all. When Gone With the Wind finally exploded onto the American literary scene in 1936, it turned her into a celebrity she never wanted to be—and the fame would ultimately help kill her.
Born in 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, Margaret was raised on stories of the Civil War from relatives who’d lived through it. But she wasn’t the demure Southern belle those stories might suggest. As a teenager, she was rebellious, modern, and scandalous by 1920s Atlanta standards. She smoked. She drank bootleg liquor during Prohibition. She performed a provocative Apache dance at a debutante ball that shocked polite society so thoroughly that she was nearly blacklisted from Atlanta’s social scene.
She attended Smith College in Massachusetts but was called home after her mother died in the 1918 flu pandemic. Margaret never returned to finish her degree. Instead, she became one of the first female journalists at The Atlanta Journal, writing under the byline “Peggy Mitchell” and covering everything from society events to dangerous stories about bootleggers and criminals.
Then she married—disastrously. Her first husband, Berrien “Red” Upshaw, was charming and violent. The marriage lasted less than a year before Margaret divorced him in 1924, an almost unthinkable act for a respectable Southern woman of that era. Divorce meant social death. Margaret didn’t care.
She quickly remarried, this time to John Marsh, a quiet, steady man who adored her. But in 1926, Margaret suffered an ankle injury that never properly healed. The pain was constant and debilitating. She couldn’t work as a reporter anymore. She was often bedridden, bored, and frustrated.
John, watching his wife suffer from inactivity, issued a challenge: “Write a book if you’re so bored.”
So she did. In secret.
For nearly ten years, Margaret Mitchell wrote what would become Gone With the Wind on a battered typewriter, sitting in their small apartment surrounded by stacks of library books about the Civil War and Reconstruction. She wrote the last chapter first, then worked backward. She wrote scenes on scraps of paper, in manila envelopes, in complete chaos. She told almost no one what she was doing—not friends, barely even family.
She called it “my book” but never thought it would be published. She was writing to entertain herself, to fill the endless painful days, to prove she could finish something. The manuscript grew to over 1,000 pages, stuffed into envelopes and hidden around the apartment.
In 1935, a Macmillan editor named Harold Latham came to Atlanta looking for Southern writers. Friends urged Margaret to show him her manuscript. She refused. She was embarrassed by it. It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t finished.
But after Latham left town, Margaret impulsively grabbed the massive pile of envelopes containing her novel and rushed to his hotel. She handed it over—then immediately regretted it and sent a telegram begging him to return it. Too late. Latham was already reading. And he was stunned.
Gone With the Wind was published on June 30, 1936. Within six months, it had sold one million copies—the fastest-selling novel in American history at that time. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. The 1939 film became the most successful movie ever made. Scarlett O’Hara became an icon.
Margaret Mitchell became one of the most famous women in America.
And she absolutely hated it.
Fame terrified Margaret. She was intensely private, introverted, and overwhelmed by the sudden attention. Thousands of letters poured in daily. Strangers appeared at her door demanding autographs and interviews. Reporters followed her. People criticized the book’s portrayal of slavery and the Civil War. Others praised it excessively. Everyone wanted a piece of her.
Margaret retreated. She gave almost no interviews. She refused to write another book, despite enormous pressure from publishers and fans. She spent years just answering fan mail, a task that consumed her life. The woman who’d written in joyful secret now felt imprisoned by what she’d created.
She never published another novel. When asked why, she said she had nothing more to say. Some historians believe the pressure and scrutiny paralyzed her. Others think she simply never intended to be a professional writer—she’d written Gone With the Wind for herself, and once it belonged to the world, the joy was gone.
The controversy around her book grew over time. Critics pointed out its romanticized portrayal of the antebellum South, its stereotypical depiction of enslaved people, and its sympathetic treatment of the Confederacy. Margaret defended her historical accuracy but struggled with the accusations. The book she’d written privately, for her own entertainment, was now being dissected and judged by millions.
By the late 1940s, Margaret had become a recluse. She avoided public appearances. She and John lived quietly in Atlanta, and Margaret focused on charity work and managing the ongoing rights to her book and the film.
On August 11, 1949, Margaret Mitchell and her husband were crossing Peachtree Street in Atlanta to see a movie. A speeding taxi driver—drunk or distracted, accounts vary—came around a corner too fast. Margaret tried to run but couldn’t move quickly enough because of her old ankle injury.
The taxi struck her. She suffered massive head injuries. She died five days later, on August 16, 1949, at just 48 years old.
The woman who’d written the most famous novel of her generation was killed crossing a street to see a movie. The irony was cruel. She’d survived scandal, divorce, injury, and overwhelming fame—only to die in a random, senseless accident.
Margaret Mitchell left behind only one published novel. But that single book sold over 30 million copies in her lifetime and continues to sell today. The 1939 film remains one of the most watched movies in history. Her creation—Scarlett O’Hara, the plantation called Tara, the famous line “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”—became embedded in global culture.
But Margaret never wanted that kind of immortality. She wrote a book to pass the time while her ankle healed. She never imagined it would consume her life, define her identity, and make her one of the most famous and controversial writers of the 20th century.
She wrote Gone With the Wind in secret for nearly ten years, hidden away in a small apartment, never intending anyone to read it.
Then the world read it. And she spent the rest of her life wishing they hadn’t.
Fame, she learned too late, was its own kind of prison. And unlike Scarlett O’Hara, Margaret Mitchell never figured out how to survive it.