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Lot 369
MITCHELL (MARGARET) Typed letter signed ("Margaret Mitchell Marsh"), to "My dear Mrs. Maidwell", thanking her for her letter about Gone With the Wind, confirming even she doesn't know the ending and that she is not involved in the film version, Atlanta, Georgia, 27 July 1937; 'I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS OBSTINATE COUPLE'
4 December 2019, 11:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £1,147.50 inc. premium
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MITCHELL (MARGARET)
Typed letter signed ("Margaret Mitchell Marsh"), to "My dear Mrs. Maidwell", thanking her for her letter about Gone With the Wind, pleased that "Scarlett and Rhett would find friends in England", confirming "No, I do not contemplate writing a sequel to 'Gone With the Wind.' To tell the truth, I do not know what happened to this obstinate couple after the end of the book... I have never written any other book and I am not working on any book now" for, since the publication of GWTW her life "has been lived in the middle of a tornado", mentioning the forthcoming film "At present only one of the cast has been chosen, - Walter Connolly will play the part of Gerald O'Hara. I have no connection whatever with the film production and do not intend to go to Hollywood or to have anything to do with the matter," and enclosing a pamphlet [not included in the lot]; with typed envelope, 1 page, printed heading 'Margaret Mitchell', some light dust staining at folds, 4to, Atlanta, Georgia, 27 July 1937
Footnotes
'I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS OBSTINATE COUPLE': the author of Gone With the Wind writes to an English fan. Published to great public and critical acclaim in 1936, the unresolved and intriguing ending of Gone With the Wind has been the subject of much speculation. Here, one year later, the author insists that even she does not know what the future holds for "this obstinate couple" and distances herself from the production of the film.
Margaret Mitchell was unprepared for the success of the book and, finding the acclaim overwhelming ("...my life, since the publication of my novel a year ago, has been lived in the middle of a tornado..."), she left the screenplay to a team of writers under the aegis of the producer David O. Selznick for which Sidney Howard won an Academy Award. Plans for the film were clearly under way by the time this letter was written, although the famous 'search for Scarlett' had not yet begun and production could only begin in earnest in 1938 once Clark Gable had been released from his contract with MGM. Walter Connolly was not destined to play Scarlett's father Gerald O'Hara as Margaret Mitchell here supposes; that part was to be taken by Irish-American actor Thomas Mitchell.
Our letter has remained in the possession of the recipient's family until now. Blanche Maidwell's letter to Margaret Mitchell, to which this is the reply, resides in the Margaret Mitchell family papers (MS 905) in the Hargrett Library of the University of Georgia.