Margaret Mitchell – 1900-1949

In 1926, Atlanta journalist Mitchell began writing an epic Civil War novel told from the Southern point of view. It took her a decade to complete, but when Gone with the Wind was published in 1936, it became a runaway bestseller—a million copies flying off the shelves within six months of publication and its heroine and hero, Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, becoming household names. It was made into a movie in 1939, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, which, for twenty years after its release was the top-earning movie in cinema history.