Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (42 page)

Brett seemed genuinely taken aback by Mitchell's stance. He felt she had misunderstood him and blamed the disconnect on how difficult it was to do business by letter. “Conversation so quickly removes misunderstanding, doubt, confusion, where correspondence, it seems to me, sometimes serves only to make the subject more complicated.”
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That said, the numbers did not lie, and regardless of what had happened with the 1935 contract, this edition would not happen without a concession on her part. He felt that each version of the book that Macmillan released had to stand on its own, no matter how much money the author had made for the firm over the past three years. They were so far apart that he suggested scrapping the entire idea. The premiere was scheduled to take place in just a few weeks, and Brett barely had enough time to pull the new edition together anyway.

Mitchell was determined to get the publisher to concede the point of fairness. If he refused to acknowledge it, she threatened, it would impair both their business and personal relationships: “Briefly and bluntly, your proposition is the sort that a grown person might offer to a child, according to my way of looking at it.”
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Yet, once Mitchell had her say, she acknowledged there was nothing she could do if he refused to change his offer. Tongues would wag if Macmillan failed to issue a special edition tied to the movie, and she did not want to be involved in any such drama. She was too tired to get entangled in “any embarrassing situations which I can avoid” so, if he insisted, she would accept the proposed royalty reduction.

Exhausted as well, Brett wavered, albeit slightly. He insisted on the reduced royalty but agreed that if the two-dollar edition sold more than fifty thousand copies, they could renegotiate. Not wanting to stir up another letter-writing campaign, he did not even bother responding to the fairness argument.
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A few weeks later, when the final figures came in, the twodollar edition cost less to produce than anticipated, and he offered Mitchell an improved royalty schedule. He was “mighty happy” things had worked out so well.
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In the end, the fracas over the two-dollar edition turned out to be for naught. Brett had never given up on an illustrated edition coming out in December, and Selznick finally agreed Macmillan could release one in Atlanta for the premiere. After that, Macmillan could sell the movie edition on a staggered basis in each city as the film opened across the nation until February 15, 1940, at which point Macmillan could release the book nationwide. In exchange, Brett agreed that Selznick could use the image of the original book's dust jacket in promoting the movie, that Macmillan would include a list of cast and crew members in the motion picture edition, and that Loew's could have one hundred free copies and buy additional ones at the trade rate. Russell Birdwell, Selznick's publicist, also proposed Brett dedicate the motion picture edition to Selznick, but that idea went nowhere fast.
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Brett hated not releasing the book to the entire national market at one time given the extra expense of a staggered release. And there was the matter of policing such a convoluted system. If bookstores in Atlanta and New York were selling the edition, Macmillan could not prevent shops in other cities from buying books and offering them in their own towns in advance of the movie's release dates. He agreed to play along though and hoped Selznick would change his mind.
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Concerned at one time that he would have no special edition of
Gone
With the Wind
to mark the occasion, Brett found himself with three ready to hit the market. Though not an ideal situation, the publisher was relieved to have it all taken care of. Now he could look forward to the premiere, which Loew's had announced for December 15, and to which Macmillan planned to send a delegation.

As Macmillan geared up for the big event, Mitchell hunkered down. With three new editions of her book scheduled for release and a gala movie premiere set to descend upon Atlanta, the author knew another whirlwind was coming. This time around, she intended to be well braced when the storm struck. That fall, the Marshes made a concession to the changes
Gone With
the Wind
had wrought in their lives and moved to the elegant Della Manta apartments on Atlanta's Piedmont Avenue. Overlooking the woods of a park across the street, the larger home would be a more secure place to ride out the coming excitement than their tourist attraction of an apartment off Peachtree Street. More importantly, the new space had an extra room they could use as a home office. Although Mitchell maintained her office in the building next to their former apartment for the time being, the additional space at home made the day-to-day job of managing her workload far more convenient.
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The move would have been a good time to have their address and telephone number unlisted in the local directory, but they would go only so far to sequester themselves. Their listing remained publicly available under the name of John R. Marsh.

Mitchell's chief line of defense against the movie mania was sticking with her decision to have little to do with its production and promotion. This was not always an easy course of action, though, as she had a natural interest in the film and wanted it to do her story justice. One of the greatest tests of her resolve came in August 1939, when Selznick invited her to attend the first preview of the film. The lengthy footage needed drastic cutting, and he thought Mitchell might like to see the movie before the editors got their hands on it.
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Selznick offered to hold the preview in the Midwest so she would not have to travel all the way to California. Brown suggested flying Mitchell to New York, where the viewing could be held in secret at the Long Island mansion of Selznick's business partner, John Hay “Jock” Whitney.
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Mitchell was as eager as anyone else to see the movie and knew Selznick was offering her an amazing opportunity. As she related to Brown, “I've heard scores of people say that they would give anything to see everything Mr. Selznick had shot, even if they had to sit hours and bring their lunches in shoe boxes. . . . We are a virile race.”
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Nonetheless, she declined, not wanting to go back on her word that she would have nothing to do with the movie making. Mitchell would wait to see the finished film in Atlanta with everyone else.

Of course, there was only so much the author could do to prevent people from trying to draw her into the fray. As the premiere buzz built, opportunists began to circle. In early October, Mitchell attended a release party for
Chins Up!
, a book written by Atlanta journalist Mildred Seydell, who had reviewed
Gone With the Wind
in the summer of 1936. Mitchell had written Seydell a thank-you letter for the notice and was distressed to discover that the journalist had quoted from that letter in the preface to
Chins Up!
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When Mitchell expressed her displeasure at her name being used to promote the book, Seydell said she assumed Mitchell would be pleased to be referenced.
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Unmoved, Mitchell explained that Seydell had no right to use the letter without permission. Seydell apologized and agreed to have the quotation removed from future printings. A few days later, Seydell attended a breakfast with Selznick International and MGM officials who were in town promoting the premiere. Marsh was also there and made no mention of the unauthorized quotation. The journalist thought things had blown over and told her publisher it did not necessarily have to change the preface in the next printing. She thought Mitchell should be delighted to be mentioned in her book and that the Hollywood people would welcome the plug for
Gone With the Wind
.
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As a fellow Southerner, Seydell ought to have known better than to assume Marsh's pleasant demeanor meant all was forgiven. Unbeknownst to Seydell, Mitchell had contacted the publisher of
Chins Up!
and threatened legal action if the quote was not removed. The editor agreed to Mitchell's demand and warned Seydell “it probably will be some time before you and she will be buttering each other's muffins.”
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Indeed, Mitchell was in no mood to butter anyone's muffins. Atlanta was in a frenzy of preparations, and despite her best efforts, the author was drawn into the whirl as friends, relatives, acquaintances, and fans begged her for tickets to opening night. The premiere would be at Loew's Grand Theatre, a venue affiliated with the film's distributor. The auditorium seated only about 2,100 people, which meant tickets were at a premium. “There was a widespread belief that I had a million tickets to the premiere in my pocketbook and for a ‘pretty, please' I would gladly yield up fifty or sixty to anyone who wanted them,” the author said. “People fought and trampled little children and connived and broke the ties of lifelong friendships and bribed and brought political influence to get tickets.”
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Also, dozens of private parties were planned for release week, and it seemed as if Mitchell had been invited to every one. She kept her vow to attend only one major event—the press club party—and declined all but a few invitations to smaller gatherings hosted by close friends or associates. As for public appearances, Mitchell would only attend the premiere. She did not want to give the impression that she disapproved of the movie but was not going to upend her entire life or make a public spectacle of herself for its sake. In an effort to distance herself gracefully, she issued a statement to the Atlanta newspapers on December 2, 1939, expressing her gratitude for the city's efforts but explaining that, due to a recent bout with influenza, her participation in the public festivities would be limited to her appearance at the main event.

In the weeks leading up to the opening, Harold Latham proposed creating a commemorative copy of
Gone With the Wind
to present to Mitchell in celebration of the movie's release. His original idea had been to insert a memorandum from Macmillan acknowledging the book's remarkable success. The editor wanted to compliment the author while also indicating that Macmillan had done its part, too.
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Latham finally settled on a letter, which was typeset and tipped into a first edition of
Gone With the Wind
. It recounts Mitchell's reluctant submission of the manuscript, the company's marketing efforts, and the book's overwhelming public reception. The salute concludes with the prediction that, for the novel, “the end is not yet, and will not be during our lifetime.” The letter was signed by Latham, Cole, James Putnam, Blanton, Brett, and other Macmillan personnel.
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The week before the big day, Brett assured Mitchell that the Macmillan team looked forward to seeing her and was “getting out the white ties and what nots” for the big event in Atlanta.
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The triple edition release would be a formidable test of
Gone With the
Wind
's staying power. Could the printed word compete with moving pictures? The first book to market was the Davison-Paxon limited edition released in Atlanta on December 1, 1939. Priced at a steep $7.50, the two volumes were housed in a slipcase. The first volume included a dedication page commemorating the movie premiere, and each copy was hand numbered. But slipcases and commemorations failed to capture the public's interest. Although today it is one of the rarest and most valuable editions of
Gone With the Wind
, the set did not sell well, and many copies gathered dust on Davison-Paxon's shelves for months to come.* Next was Macmillan's two-dollar hardback edition. Thirteen thousand copies were released on December 7 to a national audience. The book was the same format as the three-dollar edition but with a fresh coat of paint—a scarlet red binding and the original dust jacket design printed with red highlights. Brett thought it a handsome book but did not invest in an advertising campaign given its status as a mere backup to the splashy motion picture edition. No second printing was ordered.

Macmillan saved the best for last. The illustrated movie edition had been rushed into production and made it onto the shelves of Atlanta stores just in time for premiere week. The publisher got behind it with full force, ordering an initial printing of 350,000 copies. It placed large ads in the
GWTW
-themed special editions put out by Atlanta's three newspapers, with similar fanfare planned in papers across the country. Loew's also touted the special offering with a full-page notice in the elaborate pressbook it sent to theater owners to show them the promotional material available for the movie. The motion picture edition, with a bright yellow cover featuring a color still of Scarlett and Rhett, took Atlanta by storm. With tickets to the movie a limited commodity, fans went for the next best thing.