Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (33 page)

Mitchell faced further frustration when Saunders advised that ZHUM steadfastly refused to sign a contract. With the Dutch edition scheduled to be published in November 1937, Mitchell authorized Knipscheer to seek an injunction in the Netherlands preventing the book from being released. The Marshes were not happy to find themselves in court for the third time in less than a year but had full confidence that, once again, the author's rights would be recognized. Mitchell felt comfortable Knipscheer had matters under control. Upon seeing a photograph of him, she told Brett that the lawyer was so good looking that she feared “the movie people may seize him bodily.” But she hoped not, “for at just this moment I need a good Dutch lawyer.”
⁴⁸

All was not doom and gloom that summer and fall of 1937. By June, the book's first anniversary, an estimated 1,350,000 copies of
Gone With the
Wind
had been printed.
⁴⁹
To celebrate, Macmillan issued a press release stating that, over the previous year, the book had sold an average of 3,700 copies a day, including Sundays and holidays.
⁵⁰
The company developed a list of statistics to give a visual picture of what these numbers meant. In one year, Macmillan had used more than eleven tons of ink and ninety square miles of paper (four times the area of Manhattan) to produce Mitchell's book. If all the copies in existence were placed atop each other, the stack would be more than thirty-five miles high. If all pages in the books printed were laid end to end, they would reach more than ninety-two thousand miles, encircling the globe three and a half times. The dust jackets alone, if spread out side by side, would cover 425 acres.
⁵¹

These amazing figures raised the question of how much more could
Gone With the Wind
sell in its current form. Was there anyone in the United States who wanted to read the book who had not yet purchased it or borrowed a copy from a library or a friend? Some industry insiders suggested it was time for Macmillan to replace the original three-dollar edition with a cheaper one aimed at the bottom end of the book-buying market. Others thought Macmillan should sell the serial rights to a newspaper or magazine. A long list of periodicals had offered to run serializations, and their editors were waiting for Macmillan to open bidding on the rights.

Brett scoffed at the idea of giving up so soon. In September 1937, Macmillan placed a full-page notice in
Publishers Weekly
announcing there would be no cheap edition of the book that fall because there was no doubt that the original edition would continue to sell in the upcoming Christmas season.
⁵²
After that, the movie release, then scheduled for the fall of 1938, would be sure to generate continued interest. Macmillan's fortitude would prove well founded. The book sold well throughout the remainder of 1937 and was the bestselling work of American fiction for the second year in a row.

The authorized foreign editions also fared well. By summer, Saunders had wrapped up deals in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, and Sweden and had several others in the works.
⁵³
Copies of the translations started to make their way to Atlanta that fall and proved a pleasant diversion for the Marshes. The couple studied each one and expressed amazement at how the book was transformed from country to country. They had great fun deciphering the different dialects and were struck by terms such as “Gawdlmighty” becoming “Ach, Gott!” in German. Although they could nitpick here and there—the typeface in one was rather small, the paper quality poor in another—the Marshes were satisfied with how the foreign editions had come together.

Most impressive were the vivid dust jacket illustrations created by several of the European publishers. Whereas the American jacket offered only a small sketch of three unidentified persons, the foreign artists presented bold depictions of specific characters. Especially striking was the Danish edition, the first to contain interior illustrations. Mitchell said she had never thought much of “Captain Butler” until she saw the depiction of him in the book from Denmark, claiming the image gave her “a girlish flutter of the heart.”
⁵⁴
The German Rhett also stood out. The artist had given him a fierce, almost deranged, expression, which is largely hidden by a bristling black mustache. Latham found the depiction “perfectly terrific (in the sense of terrifying).”
⁵⁵
In one case, the cover art was attractive but disconcerting. The first of a two-volume Czechoslovakian edition carried an American flag on the dust jacket. Seeing the Stars and Stripes on such a thoroughly Confederate book seemed out of place to the author, and she asked Saunders to explain the situation to the publisher.
⁵⁶
When the second volume arrived, she exclaimed to Latham with relief, “They gave us the Confederate flag on this one!”
⁵⁷

As word spread about the overseas editions, Mitchell once again found herself the center of attention in Atlanta. Family, friends, and fans wanted to see what the novel looked like in a foreign language. To cut down on people ringing her doorbell and asking to see the books, Mitchell agreed to let the local library put them on display.
⁵⁸
She also loaned the Danish edition and its original illustrations to the Atlanta Historical Society, which arranged them in a window of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Atlanta. Mitchell reported to Brett that there was an “unbelievable amount of interest” and that swarms of people were “hanging about” the exhibits.
⁵⁹
He complimented her savvy in letting the public enjoy the books; new publicity was always good for business, he said.
⁶⁰

Also exciting were the reviews, which Saunders helped Mitchell translate. A Danish reviewer praised the book in picturesque terms noting, “It is indeed a juicy fruit that [publisher] Steen Hasselbalch has caught in his lap. Some people may think that it is too large, too long, but do not worry—the important thing is that it really is a delicious fruit, full of juice, meat and seeds.”
⁶¹
A Swedish newspaper called Mitchell's novel an “outstanding literary gem.”
⁶²
In Finland, a critic noted the parallels between that nation's history and the American Civil War and said Finnish readers would be encouraged by the greatness America had achieved after the struggles it had endured in the war.
⁶³
The author found the reviews exciting and humbling. Reports of the public response overseas were gratifying as well. The German edition sold forty thousand copies in five weeks. The Danish publisher sold its entire first printing of ten thousand copies in eleven days and hoped to sell forty thousand more.
⁶⁴

Mitchell found herself in a new realm of fame, one far broader than she had experienced in 1936. Madeleine Baxter, a friend from Smith College who had traveled in Europe, wrote the author about the popularity of the German
Gone With the Wind
. While in a Munich bookstore, Baxter mentioned to a clerk that she knew Mitchell. Baxter reported that the man grabbed her hand and exclaimed, “ ‘I wish to kiss the hand of the friend of this great writer.' ”
⁶⁵
Now an international celebrity, Mitchell received a fresh round of fan letters. Europeans were fascinated by her and demanded to know who she was and what made her tick. A Hungarian admirer lamented:

I don't know if you like Mendelssohn, I don't know if your heart has ever been touched by a Shelly [
sic
] poem. I don't know what you think of
Mid-
summer Night's Dream
and if you like Benvenuto Cellini? Again I don't know how you eat your grapefruit, peeled or just cut in half ? If you pour maraschino over it or if you are afraid of gaining weight? I know nothing and I'd love to know everything [about] a writer from Georgia who wrote the book about Scarlett O'Hara.
⁶⁶

As she did with letters from her American fans, Mitchell endeavored to answer each one.

Predictably, the rumor mill began churning again, and the foreign press picked up the stories that had circulated about Mitchell over the previous year and, in many cases, expanded upon them. By the time she achieved fame in South Africa, for example, she was no longer a shy recluse but now had a “deranged” mind caused by her success.
⁶⁷
This time, Mitchell tried to take the attention more philosophically, managing on occasion to find the humor in some of it. She wrote to Latham about a story circulating in France that depicted the acceptance of her manuscript as if out of a romantic fantasy:

My faithful husband and my faithful old black Bessie (This is the literal translation) cried, “Voila, a masterpiece!” My husband felt that this book was more than a symptom of the disease. (You figure that one out. I can't.) He stole it from me and went to New York. In practically no time
une auto puissante
drew up in front of a beautiful home my husband had bought for me, and a dashing gentleman said to the old and faithful and black Bessie, “Announce to madame the presence of monsieur Harold S. Latham, Vice President and Editor of the Macmillan Publishing Company.” This well prepared editor also whipped a contract out of his pants pocket. I cannot get the next idiom but it appears that I went into lady-like vapours, but my husband spoke to me with kindness and firmness, and, like an obedient wife, I signed a contract just prior to a long swoon.
⁶⁸

Perhaps because of the geographical distance, she was better able to see the lighter side of such stories.

Mitchell found most of her foreign publishers to be an earnest group of people and enjoyed working with them. She could not help but be impressed by the energy they put into selling her novel. She especially appreciated the efforts of Vaclav Petr, her Czechoslovakian publisher, who had a flair for advertising. As Saunders put it, he was “pleased as Punch” to have Mitchell on his list and invested generously in the book's promotion.
⁶⁹
He organized a window display contest for booksellers, as well as a public exhibition of
Gone With the Wind
foreign editions. Following Macmillan's lead, he created an informational brochure about Mitchell to distribute to newspapers and fans.
⁷⁰
The author also admired her German publisher, Henry Goverts, who was new to the business and eager to prove himself with
Gone With the Wind
. Optimistic about the book's chance for success, he invested some of his personal funds to promote it.
⁷¹

Mitchell was so impressed with her overseas publishers that she supported their efforts the best she could. On several occasions, she lifted her moratorium against book signing and inscribed foreign editions for the publishers to use in their promotions. When Denmark's Hasselbalch organized a contest offering one lucky reader a trip to Georgia, Mitchell agreed to give the winner a personal tour of local Civil War sites. The recipient was a middle-aged bookkeeper named Emanuel Christensen, whom Hasselbalch referred to as having “a certain YMCAishness.” Mitchell arranged for the visitor to be squired around town by historian Wilbur G. Kurtz and an elderly Danish interpreter, and she joined them in Clayton County for a tour of the area around Jonesboro. She also hosted a dinner for Christensen that included a performance of spirituals by a quartet from Bessie Jordan's church. Macmillan got in on the act and used the Dane's visit as an opportunity to draw attention to foreign interest in
Gone With the Wind
. When Christensen traveled through New York on his way home, Macmillan showed him a grand time, taking him to the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall, and the circus.
⁷²

One challenge of handling the foreign editions was juggling the needs and personalities of so many different people. On one occasion, the German publisher became upset because the Danish publisher had obtained access to photographs of Mitchell taken by the Associated Press. Although Mitchell had nothing to do with circulating the images, she took the time to smooth things over by sending the German publisher a studio pose that had not yet been used overseas.
⁷³
There were also instances where the foreign publishers seemed to be stepping on each other's toes, such as when the Latvian edition used the same cover art as the German edition. Mitchell had no idea whether permissions had been granted but decided to keep out of it.

She was so proud of her success overseas that she shared copies of the foreign editions with people who meant a great deal to her. On a regular basis, she gave extra copies of the treasured books to her husband, George Brett, Harold Latham, Lois Cole, Norman Berg, and Margaret Baugh—many of them signed. She also donated overseas editions to the Atlanta Historical Society, Emory University, and Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia; some of those were signed as well. Perhaps in her mind, there was a distinction between signing copies of “the book” and signing translations.