MARGARET MITCHELL
Typed letter (with handwritten postscript) to friend and fellow author Edwin Granberry, discussing authors and publishers.
Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 2 pages (front and verso), 7½x10. Atlanta, 1941 January 18. To "Dear Mabel and Edwin" [Granberry], in full: "We stopped in Macon on our way home and had dinner with our friends there - Susan Myrick, Mr. W. T. Anderson et cetera. The next morning Susan and Jack Tarver had coffee with me, not because of my bright eyes (which were far from bright at that unseemly hour) but because they wanted to hear about the play. They were so interested and enthusiastic you would have thought they wrote it or owned a hunk of it. Sue said she might be in Orlando sometime and hoped you'd let her come to call. We learned that Martin Anderson had made her editor of the Telegraph's new magazine section. It started January 1st, I believe, and she and the Macon people are very enthusiastic about it. When we reached home we found Father ill but not in a dangerous condition, and my brother's family down with the flu. The epidemic is severe here and the hospitals full. I hope Julian is completely well by now and that none of the rest of you have caught it. The newspapers indicate that the epidemic is going strong in Florida, so perhaps we got out just in time. You gave us such a wonderful vacation and we had such a good time we cannot even feel guilty about monopolizing your time when you had many other things to do, I am sure. It is such fun to be with people who like to sit and talk half the night and do not feel that entertaining a visitor means leaping from night spot to night spot and getting drunker the while. You'd have thought we had talked everything out, but on our way home John and I remembered a thousand things we had not even mentioned, so we'll have to save them for the next go-round or until we meet in New York for your opening performance. You two are the nicest people in the world to visit and I hope you both realize it. There must be something in mental telepathy. You recall how we and the Dowdeys spoke of Kenneth Littauer. I have had no communication with him in about two years, but on our return my secretary, Miss Baugh, told us that he had long-distanced from New York, saying hye had heard that I was 'at work again' and he wanted to remind me that I had promised he could see any future work. Miss Baugh told him I wasn't working and that this rumor rose up periodically from what source she did not know. I am sure the source this time must have been a psychic one - or am I being abnormal? I found a brief letter from Harold Latham waiting for me. I had told you he expected to be here in Atlanta around February 11th when Minnie Moody's book is to appear. This letter makes no reference to that definite date and merely says he may be here in 'February or March.' I'm writing him today to find out if he has definite plans and tell him of your offer, Edwin, to chaperone and guide him. When I have definite news I will let you know. Please tell Fred Hanna about the indefiniteness of Mr. Latham's plans. I have told Fred Mr. Latham seemed practically certain of a February trip to Florida. Please tell Fred, too, I will answer his letter on Monday. You know we'll be watching the mail for items about the show. When I get from under the business things that have piled up, I am going to start in on the title hunt. Bless you both and thank you for our wonderful trip. [signature] Handwritten postscript: "P. S. Just mailed 'Little Orvie' to Mabel and a book on [?] to Julian." MARGARET MITCHELL MARSH (1900-1949), a native of Atlanta, Georgia, was awarded the 1937 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for Gone With the Wind, her epic novel set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction South. At first uncertain about her book's literary merit, she had submitted her manuscript to Macmillan Company in 1935. Mitchell was stunned -- and thrust into the public spotlight -- when the book sold over 1.3 million copies in its first year. It remained on the best-seller list for 21 weeks, enjoying a resurgence in sales with the release of the 1939 film based on the novel. Edwin Granberry, a freelance book reviewer and critic, had reviewed her book in a glowing and unprecedented 1,200-word piece in the New York "Evening Sun" on June 30, 1936, the day of the book's publication. Mitchell had been so impressed by the report, which compared her book to Tolstoy's War and Peace, that she had written to thank him. Her letter started a lifelong correspondence -- and a friendship between the two couples: Margaret and her husband, John Marsh, and Edwin (a Southerner himself) and his wife, Mabel. Margaret and John first met the Granberrys at Blowing Rock, North Carolina, the summer campus of Florida's Rollins College, where Granberry was a Professor of English. It was during this visit that she had agreed to accept $50,000 in movie rights for her book pending contract negotiations with producer David O. Selznick (against Granberry's advice). Granberry was himself a noted author, a winner of the O'Henry Award for best short story.
Multiple mailing folds. Lightly toned. Otherwise, fine condition.