Mitchell, Margaret:

$7,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

GONE WITH THE WIND. First edition, first printing, with "Published May, 1936" on titlepage verso. Inscribed from the author to E. L. McCarthy on front free endpaper. Mitchell's monumental work on the Civil War and Reconstruction was an immediate hit, topping the American fiction bestseller lists for 1936 and 1937, and outselling Uncle Tom's Cabin by the mid-1940s. Despite considerable controversy and criticism, the book has remained one of the most recognizable and influential modern American novels, thanks in large part to the legendary film adaptation of 1939."The book that lives on and on, decried by the devotees of higher criticism, scorned by the intellectuals, and loved by the public. It was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1937, has been translated into most of the world's languages, has been reprinted eighty-five times by its original publishers. It has world sales well over twenty [now thirty] million copies, not counting pirated editions, and has appeared in an estimated total of 165 different editions worldwide....The first edition is readily recognized by the words, 'Published May, 1936' on the verso of the title page....Mrs. [Mary] Chesnut had the proper word even for Gone With the Wind--seventy-two years before its time--when she wrote in her diary January 16, 1864: 'We go on as before, hearing of nothing but battle, murder, sudden death. Those are the daily events; but a new book, that is the un-looked for thing, the pleasing incident in this life of monotonous musi

• Printing: first

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