Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (29 page)

In the 1930s, the stage rights to a successful novel were often more valuable than the movie rights. This was the heyday of Broadway, and theatrical producers scoured the literary world for promising new story lines to dramatize on stage. Mitchell's book had obvious potential, but the author was in no rush to cash in. She had been through enough with the movie negotiations and did not relish the idea of complicating her life with a new round of contract talks. She turned down all offers to buy the dramatic rights.

When it came to
Gone With the Wind
, though, people seemed to have a hard time taking “no” for an answer. In one instance over the winter of 1937, a Georgia theater producer refused to accept Marsh's statement that Mitchell would not sell the rights. The Federal Theatre Project, one of Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration agencies, and the Atlanta Theatre Guild had joined forces to write an outline of a four-act play of
Gone With the Wind
they hoped to present during Atlanta's Dogwood Festival that spring. Thinking he could get a favorable response if Mitchell would read his proposal, the producer harangued friends of the Marshes, Wilbur and Annie Laurie Kurtz, to open the lines of communication with the author. The appeal got the producer nowhere. After the Kurtzes made two failed attempts to set up a meeting with Mitchell, the author's nerves wore thin. “I do not know why they still persist in the face of this,” she wrote to Annie Laurie Kurtz. “Should you have any communications with them on the subject, tell them that I thank them for their interest but that I do not want the book dramatized.”
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Also on Mitchell's mind that winter and spring of 1937 were the foreign rights to her novel. Brett had warned her that the foreign editions would not be worth much money and might be difficult to manage. But that had not deterred the author from taking an active interest in her book's reception outside the United States. Hopeful that
Gone With the Wind
would do her proud internationally, she was willing to deal with the inconvenience.

Macmillan London had finally released the British edition at the end of September 1936, along with a Colonial edition for readers in Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa.
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To Mitchell's pleasure, most of the reviews were as favorable as the American ones. The London
Times
commented that few books in literary history had sustained such a consistent level of competence.
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Although some British critics complained that the book inaccurately depicted friendly relationships between whites and blacks, Mitchell scoffed at the suggestion she wrote her book to glorify the South's position on slavery.
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“Personally I do not know where they get such an idea,” she wrote Herschel Brickell, “for, as far as I can see most of the negro characters were people of worth, dignity and rectitude—certainly Mammy and Peter and even the ignorant Sam knew more of decorous behavior and honor than Scarlett did.”
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British readers did not seem overly concerned about the racial nuances, and by December,
Gone With the Wind
hit number 1 on the British bestseller list, a rare honor for an American author.
³²

The success in Britain bode well for the other overseas rights, which were being handled by Marion Saunders. After the movie negotiations and the dustup over whether Annie Laurie Williams or Macmillan had represented Mitchell, the Marshes had been wary of dealing with another agent. However, they had no idea how to manage the foreign rights and so followed the company's lead and let Saunders continue working with foreign publishers on behalf of
Gone With the Wind
.

By February 1937, Mitchell proclaimed to Brickell that “everybody except the Chinese and the Albanians” had put in a bid on
Gone With the
Wind
.
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Though the level of activity was promising, working through so many offers proved tedious. The Marshes kept running into snags, the chief one being dealing with Saunders. The agent had specific ideas about how foreign rights should work, and her methods did not always jibe with what the Marshes wanted.

Mitchell, for instance, had concerns about quality control in the translations and told Saunders not to accept any offers for abridgements. The agent thought this unwise because it limited Mitchell's chances of obtaining contracts in small countries that did not have enough money or paper to print a book as long as
Gone With the Wind
. The Marshes also instructed Saunders that all foreign publishers had to include the Macmillan copyright notice in their books and promise, in writing, not to distribute their translations in the United States. Although both of these conditions had been mandated by Macmillan, Saunders complained about the author's cautiousness. The agent warned that foreign contracts were not as tightly woven as American ones and that Mitchell risked discouraging publishers if she insisted on such provisions. After various squabbles, Saunders agreed to do things the way Mitchell wanted, but Marsh sensed trouble lay ahead with the agent.

Cole validated those suspicions when, in January 1937, she reported that Saunders wanted to cut Marsh out of the loop on the dealings with foreign publishers. Macmillan had been receiving a steady flow of letters from publishers expressing interest in translating
Gone With the Wind
and had been forwarding copies of all such inquiries to both Saunders and Marsh. Obviously not aware of Cole's friendship with the author, Saunders asked Cole to stop sending Marsh copies. She apparently preferred to process the requests on her own without his intervention. Cole alerted Marsh, though discouraged him from letting Saunders know he was on to her.
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Marsh agreed to keep silent but set his mind to breaking in the agent to handle the
Gone With the Wind
rights with the care and thoroughness he demanded. Cole continued to send copies of the requests to Marsh, who kept a close watch on Saunders. He communicated with the agent on an almost daily basis by either letter or long-distance telephone call.
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Marsh's oversight did not sit well with Saunders, a go-getter out to close deals. Operating on a commission basis, her goal was to get as many translations in place as quickly as possible. Not only that, but she considered herself an independent, free-thinking woman confident in her abilities. She explained herself to Mitchell this way: “I'm a rebel at best (that's why I like your story!)—there's Highland Scottish blood in my veins, as well as Spanish blood, and a few other things—and I've roamed around this world of ours quite a bit—and have been somewhat independent ever since the age of 19 after a fortune was machine-gunned in the World War.” She goaded Mitchell to be more independent of the men in her life and to take charge of her business matters: “Or do you prefer to leave all such matters to the strong men of your family? I've never had a strong man to fight my battles for me since my father died in 1922—so I've battled alone. And it has been loads of fun.”
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The discord between Marsh and Saunders boiled over that January when several of the overseas deals were ready to be formalized. The Marshes wanted written contracts in every country that published
Gone With the
Wind
, but the agent did not think that necessary. In her experience, it was fine to handle such matters by exchanging letters and cables, and she wanted leeway to “put the business through” as she saw fit.
³⁷
She claimed to have on the table six contracts, all of which were stalled by Marsh's insistence on dotting every
i
and crossing every
t
. She threatened that, if she lost any contracts because of his delays, Marsh would owe her extra compensation for her time.
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Marsh responded to Saunders in his typical no-nonsense way. He apologized that she “found it difficult to deal with” them. If she could not work “with a family that believes in abiding by its contracts, even at the sacrifice of its financial benefit,” he invited her to resign.
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Saunders did not want to give up on
Gone With the Wind
, she just wanted Marsh out of the way. His inexperience and persnicketiness were interfering with the contracts. She ignored the offer to quit, proposing instead that he pay her an additional one hundred dollars for the extra work he created for her.

At this point, the Marshes were tempted to throw in the towel and forget the translations altogether. But they were not quitters, nor were they unfair. If they abandoned the rights before any deals were closed, Saunders would receive no compensation for the months of work she had done. Although it must have stuck in his craw, Marsh agreed to pay Saunders the extra money with the understanding that all the contracts with foreign publishers would be in writing and contain the restrictions the Marshes wanted included. Saunders accepted the money and Marsh's terms.

Despite her efforts to maintain a low profile, a fresh round of attention focused on Mitchell when the awards for literary merit in 1936 were announced. She came away the big winner, landing both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Mitchell obtained a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the publishing world when she received advance notice of her selection in both instances before the official announcements were made. As Mitchell once said to her mother-in-law, “Publishing circles gossip more than newspapers or ladies homes.”
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At the end of February 1937, the American Booksellers Association presented its National Book Award, anointing
Gone With the Wind
the most distinguished novel of 1936.* This was an industry prize selected by booksellers to honor the books they admired and enjoyed selling.
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Although the winners were officially announced at a luncheon in New York on February 25, Mitchell had apparently heard the news weeks earlier. A cryptic message from Cole to the author dated February 5, 1937, congratulates Mitchell about an unspecified accomplishment and instructs the author not to leak any details. Only a few people at Macmillan were in the know, and if the information found its way to the press before the official announcement, Cole warned, Macmillan's name “would be mud” in the industry. Mitchell had little incentive to draw attention to herself, and there is no indication she let the cat out of the bag.

She kept another secret that spring when Julian Harris, executive editor of the
Chattanooga Times
, wrote Marsh and tipped him off that Mitchell had won the Pulitzer Prize for the most distinguished novel. The letter had been directed to Marsh's office, and he called his wife at home to give her the news. Mitchell later told Harris that Marsh had to read the letter to her three times before she could take it in.
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On the afternoon of May 3, hours before the Pulitzer committee sent her official word, Mitchell wired George Brett to expect good news: “GO TO THE PARTY AND DON'T FORGET TO TAKE THE BRASS BAND WITH YOU.”
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She likely also shared the scoop with Harold Latham, who probably already knew, as evidenced by the fact that he had arranged to be in Atlanta the week the awards were announced.

When the official wire arrived that evening at the Marsh apartment, the author was not there to receive it. The Marshes and Latham were visiting at the Mitchell family home on Peachtree Street. An editor and photographer from the
Atlanta Constitution
tracked Mitchell down at her father's house to record her reaction to the news. She later joked to Brett that the press was “indignant because I hadn't stayed home where they could catch me with ease.”
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For the benefit of the reporters, she acted suitably surprised, never letting on that she already knew of her selection.

Despite her desire to stay out of the public eye, Mitchell gracefully accepted the attention the award brought, even agreeing to attend a party in her honor hosted by Latham and Norman Berg at the Atlanta Athletic Club the following evening. She also gave an interview on WSB Radio in Atlanta, saying that winning the award was an honor far beyond any she ever expected for her book. In describing her feelings about the award to Latham, Mitchell said she did not feel like a Pulitzer Prize winner and had a hard time believing “that I am sitting in the seats of the mighty.”
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