Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh - 9781561456178

Based on almost 200 previously unpublished letters and extensive interviews with their closest associates, Walker's biography of Margaret Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh, offers a new look into a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 critically acclaimed biography celebrates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Gone With the Wind in 1936. John and Peggy - in lively extracts from their letters to family and friends - 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 in general 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, adn 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 a wife and between a writer and her editor.