6 pages (11 1/8 x 7 1/8 in.; 282 x 181 mm), with a few corrections in ink, Atlanta, 18 March 1936; horizontal folds, joints starting, some light browning and soiling.

Condition as described in catalogue entry.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Gone with the Wind "had to do with a girl named Pansy O'Hara (whose name, due to the pressure of public opinion, has been changed to Scarlett O'Hara) and her sister-in-law, Melanie Wilkes."  In March 1936, two months before the publication of her bestselling historical romance, Margaret Mitchell wrote a six-page letter to Dr. Charles Warren Everett, a professor of English at Columbia College.  Everett had served as a reader for the publisher Macmillian and gave Mitchell's manuscript an enthusiastic review, which led to her contract with the firm.  This led to Mitchell's decision to do proper research on the Civil War and revise her novel extensively.  In this letter, she thanks Everett for his support and outlines the work she has put into the book.

Mitchell relates in detail the genesis of her novel, which was begun for "fun" when she was recuperating from a broken ankle.  "So I wrote this book because the Civil War is one of the few things I know a little about."  Before the book was submitted to a publisher, its only reader had been Mitchell's husband, who "has a reverence for the English language which I do not share."  After Everett's recommendation led to a contract, Mitchell realized she had to do a little fact-checking bef💃ore her novel was released: "I 🀅knew that every line, every word of that enormous manuscript would have to be checked for accuracy.  Everything from whether or not people had toothbrushes in the Sixties to whether General Johnston held General Sherman at Kennesaw Mountain for twenty seven days or thirty days.  Not to check each detail was unthinkable for, worse luck, my father is the local authority on Civil War history and my brother the editor of the Historical Bulletin here."

Mithcell takes special pleasure in reminding Everett of the flattering remarks he made about her writing, most especially his noticing the "temp🥀o" in her prose.  "In particular I was charmed by your remark about my 'tempo' ….  I was completely dumbfounded as I was no more conscious of having a tempo than I was of having a gall bladder …. From then 🌱on, I heard about my tempo from all members of my family, including the colored cook.  When she made her first, and only, failure on a lemon pie and I asked her what had happened she said gloomily that she guessed somethig had went wrong with her tempo."

A very good, and presumably unpublished, letter on the writing of Gone with the Wind.