Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Published in 1936, Gone with the Wind became an immediate best-seller, bringing first-time novelist Margaret Mitchell an overwhelming amount of critical and popular attention. Awarded the 1937 Pulitzer Prize, the novel was adapted as a film in 1939—an achievement that won ten Academy Awards.

Gone with the Wind Summary

Twilight of the Old South

Scarlett O'Hara is the anti-heroine of Gone with the Wind, a character who breaks the conventions of a romance novel from the first line of the book "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it." A spoiled, high-tempered, and strong-willed sixteen-year-old Southern belle, Scarlett is the eldest of three O'Hara daughters who live an idyllic life on a North Georgian plantation called Tara. In the opening scenes, the O'Haras prepare to entertain their neighbors with a barbecue, and Scarlett plots to capture the man she loves-Ashley Wilkes-from her friend, Melanie. However, Ashley rejects her, and Scarlett's nemesis, Rhett Butler, overhears her humiliation. Rhett, a wealthy outcast from high society who "looks like one of the Borgias," is both amused by and interested in Scarlett.

The Civil War
News of the war reaches Tara, and Scarlett's life and the lives of everyone around her are immediately and irrevocably altered. Frustrated by circumstances and rejected by Ashley, she marries Melanie's brother, Charles, stealing him away from India Wilkes. Charles goes to war and dies, like most of the young men who attended the O'Haras' party. Inglorious in Scarlett's eyes, Charles dies from measles, not fighting. The widowed Scarlett grows restless at her plantation home, and relocates to Atlanta, moving in with her sister-in-law Melanie and her Aunt Pitty. Melanie feels great love and respect for Scarlett, but Scarlett is jealous of her and hates her. Scarlett scandalizes Atlanta society with her defiant refusal to mourn her husband appropriately, and in a key scene dances at a charity ball despite the breach of etiquette such an action creates. Rhett is the winning bidder in the "auction" for her next dance, and though still in love with Ashley Wilkes, Scarlett soon comes to enjoy...
Twilight of the Old South
Scarlett O' Hara is the antiheroine of Gone with the Wind, a character who breaks the conventions of a romance novel from the first line of the book—"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it." A spoiled, high-tempered, and strong-willed sixteen-year-old Southern belle, Scarlett is the eldest of three O'Hara daughters who live an idyllic life on a north Georgia plantation called Tara. In the opening scenes, the O'Haras prepare to entertain their neighbors with a barbecue, and Scarlett plots to capture the man she...