Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)
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<br>Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta. Her mother was a suffragist and father a prominent lawyer and president of the Atlanta Historical Society. Mitchell grew up listening to stories about old Atlanta and the battles the Confederate Army had fought there during the American Civil War. At the age of fifteen she wrote in her journal: "If I were a boy, I would try for West Point, if I could make it, or well I'd be a prize fighter - anything fpr the thrills." Mitchell graduated from the local Washington Seminary and started in 1918 to study medicine at Smith College. In her youth Mitchell adopted her mother's feminist leanings which clashed with her father's conservatism - but she lived fully the Jazz age and wrote about it in nonfiction, like in her article 'Dancers Now Drown Out Even the Cowbell' in the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine. "In vain, the leader the jazz band may burst blood vessels in his efforts to make himself heard above the din of the "Double Shuffle" and the "Fandango Stamp," the newest dances introduced to Atlanta's younger set. Formerly we had a vast respect for the amount of noise a jazz band could produce. Now we see it is utterly eclipsed."
<br>When Mitchell's mother died in 1919, she returned to home to keep house for her father and brother. In 1922 she married Berrien Kinnard Upshaw. The disastrous marriage was climaxed by spousal rape and was annulled 1924. Mitchell started her career as a journalist in 1922 under the name Peggy Mitchell, writing articles, interviews, sketches, and book reviews for the Atlanta Journal. Four years later she resigned after an ankle injury. Her second husband, John Robert Marsh, an advertising manager, encouraged Mitchell in her writing aspirations. From 1926 to 1929 she wrote Gone With the Wind. The outcome, a thousand page novel, which was later compared with Tolstoy's War and Peace, was published by the Macmillan Publishing Company in 1936. The retail price of the book was $3.00.
<br>Mitchell's book broke sales records, the New Yorker praised it, and the poet and critic John Crowe Ransom admired "the architectural persistence behind the big work" but criticized the book as overly Southern, particularly in its treatment of Reconstruction. Malcolm Cowley's disdain in his review originated partly from the book's popularity. John Peale Bishop dismissed the novel as merely "one more of those 1000 page novels. competent but neither very good nor very sound." In 1937 Gone with the Wind was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
<br>Although Gone with the Wind brought Mitchell fame and a tremendous fortune, it seems to have brought little joy. Chased by the press and public, the author and her husband lived modestly and traveled rarely. Also questions about the book's literary status and racism, historical view and depiction of the Klu Klux Klan, which had much similarities with D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915), led to critical neglect which continued well in the 1960s. Griffith's film was based on the Reverend Thomas Dixon's racist play; the author was a great admirer of Mitchell and wanted to write a study of her novel. In Atlanta the Klan kept a high profile and had it national headquarters in the 1920s on the same street, where Mitchell lived.
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<br>During World War II Mitchell was a volunteer selling war bonds and volunteer for the American Red Cross. She was named honorary citizen of Vimoutiers, France, in 1949, for helping the city obtain American aid after WW II. Mitchell died in Atlanta on August 16, 1949 - she was accidentally struck by a speeding car while crossing Peachtree Street. Authorized sequel for Gone with the Wind, entitled Scarlett and written by Alexandra Ripley, appeared in 1992. In the story Scarlett journeys to Ireland with her children and meets again Rhett Butler. LOST LAYSEN, a lost novella by Mitchell, written when she was 16, and given to her close friend, was published in 1995. The romantic story was set on a South Pacific island.
中文在百度输入玛格丽特·米切尔,会查到很多.自己再整理一下就可以了.请注意下面的中文和上面的不完全一样,仅供参考.
1900年11月8日，玛格丽特·米切尔出生于美国佐治亚州亚特兰大市的一个律师家庭。她的父亲曾经是亚特兰大市的历史学会主席。在南北战争期间，亚特兰大曾于1864年落入北方军将领舒尔曼之手。后来，这便成了亚特兰大居民热衷的话题。自孩提时起，玛格丽特就时时听到她父亲与朋友们，甚至居民之间谈论南北战争。当26岁的玛格丽特决定创作一部有关南北战争的小说时，亚特兰大自然就成了小说的背景。
玛格丽特曾就读于马萨诸塞州的史密斯学院。后因母亲病逝，家中需要她来主持家务，于是不得不中途退学。从1922年起，她开始用自己的昵称“佩吉”为《亚特兰大日报》撰稿。在以后的四年中，就有129 篇署名的和大量未署名的稿件见诸报端。这些稿件中有一组便是玛格丽特为过去南方邦联将领写的专题报道。
在经历了一次失败的婚姻之后，玛格丽特于1925年与佐治亚热力公司的广告部主任约翰·马施结婚。1926年，由于腿部负伤，玛格丽特不得不辞去报社的工作。在丈夫的鼓励下，她开始致力于创作。
玛格丽特后来对人说，《飘》的写作占去了她近10年的时间。其实，小说大部分章节的初稿早在1929年就完成了。她首先完成的是小说的最后一章，然后返回来写前面的章节，但她始终没有按事件发生的先后顺序写，而是想到哪里就写到哪里。在近10年的时间里，玛格丽特很少对她的朋友们提起她的书稿。虽然不少人都知道她在创作，但几乎无人知道她具体在写什幺。1935年春，麦克米伦出版公司的编辑哈罗德·拉瑟姆在全国各地组稿。当他来到亚特兰大时，偶尔听说了玛格丽特写书的情况。起初，玛格丽特否认她在写小说，因为她不相信南方人对南北战争的看法能让北方的出版商感兴趣。结果，就在拉瑟姆离开亚特兰大的前一天，玛格丽特才送去了她已经打好的近五英尺厚的手稿。同年 7月，麦克未伦公司决定出版这部小说，并暂定名为《明天是新的一天》。
此后，玛格丽特花了半年的时间来反复核实小说中所涉及的历史事件的具体时间和地点。她引用美国诗人欧内斯特·道森的一句诗，将小说的题目改为《随风而去》（汉译名为《飘》）。与此同时，麦克米伦公司也作了大量的宣传。因此，1936年 6月30日，这位无名作家的“巨著”一经面世，其销售情况立即打破了美国出版界的多项纪录：日销售量最高时为5万册；前六个月发行了100Q万册；第一年200万册。随后，小说获得了1937年普利策奖和美国出版商协会奖。就在小说问世的当年，好莱坞便以 5万美元的代价购得将《飘》改编成电影的权利。由大卫·塞尔兹尼克执导，克拉克·加布尔和维维安·利主演的电影《飘》于1939年问世。
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