MARGARET MITCHELL - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 11/11/1941 - HFSID 55659

MARGARET MITCHELL
Mitchell, always shy about the spotlight on her following Gone With the Wind, confides to friend and fellow author Edwin Granberry that "it is tempting fate to ever write a book or a play. If you do, everything except a plague of grasshoppers arrives."
Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 2 pages (front and verso), 7¼x10½. Atlanta, Georgia, 1941 November 11. On personal letterhead to "Dear Mabel and Edwin" [Granberry], in full: "We were very distressed to learn of your illness, Mabel, and I was glad to see Fred Hanna at a party Sunday night and learn that you really were up and about. Don't you think you Granberrys have managed all the plagues of Egypt now? I never knew any family, except us, to have as much trouble. (And, as Michael Arlen remarked in 'The Green Hat,' 'the Marches are never let off of anything.') Things are well with us now but I remember, with no pleasure, the first five years we were married when everyone in our family seemed to have something happen to them. Perhaps it is something all couples must go through with, but I hope the Granberrys are really through now. Edwin, you know it is tempting fate to ever try to write a book or a play. If you do, everything except a plague of grasshoppers arrives. Maybe, if you are a Midwestern author, you get the plague of grasshoppers, too. Fred asked if we were coming to Florida this winter and I had to tell him that we probably would not, as everything is very uncertain with us these days. There's been such a terrible drouth [sp] in Georgia that the water reservoirs have almost dried up and the Power Company has had to ration power. It is a government order, and the OPM office is here in Atlanta. Of course this keeps John busier than a bird dog and, unless we have a lot of gully-washing, trash-moving rains, there is no telling how long the emergency will last. Then, too, my father continues to have his ups and downs, good times and bad times. He's been in the hospital for months and may be there permanently. But we hope that a recent hernia operation may better his general condition and at last permit him to get about with a little more freedom. We are both awfully tired and the thought of a trip to Florida and long, talkative evenings with you sounds like heaven. I hope somehow we manage it but do not see much chance. Why on earth do we have to live so far apart? Regardless of what is happening and even if the Germans are bombing Atlanta, we still intend to go to Neww York for the first night of the play. We know it is going to be marvelous and we can't wait to hear the good news that it is finally going to be produced. Our love to you both and to the boys, and our hope, Mabel, that you are going to feel better and better." 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 resurgence in sales with the release of the 1939 film based on the novel. Although proud of her books success, Mitchell soon tired of the publicity, and began declining interview and autograph requests. This sense that literary fame can become burdensome is evident in her letter here. 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. There is no record of Granberry producing a successful play, however. Lightly toned. Multiple mailing folds. Otherwise, fine condition.