MARGARET MITCHELL - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 09/23/1940 - HFSID 55675

MARGARET MITCHELL
Pleased that friend and fellow author Edwin Granberry is writing again, the author shares with him her relief that the frenzy over the movie version of her book has abated with the outbreak of war: "The world has far more important things to think about these days than me." Several other literary notables are mentioned in this letter.
Typed Letter signed: "Margaret", 3 pages, 7¼x10½. Atlanta, Georgia, 1940 September 23. To "My dear Mabel and Edwin [Granberry], you varmint". In part: "Here I've gone around feeling blue ever since I had the last news of you (Edwin) that you had given up any notion of writing any more. I had thought about what a waste of talent it was and had heroically restrined myself from writing and telling you so. Then, a month ago, vague rumors began trickling into my ears at parties that you were writing again. Don't ask me who told me because I don't know. I go places and meet two hundred strangers in thirteen and a half minutes, and some of them say, 'Oh, do you know Edwin Granberry who is doing some writing?' and before I could catch them they would disappear and twelve more strange faces would stand before me. I didn't believe a word I heard because I hear such remarkable stories about my own second book which is non-existent. Recently, John and I went to Macon, Georgia, to the annual newspaper editors' convention. Our friend Susan Myrick, of the Macon Telegraph, knows how much John and I think of you both and she said, 'I want you to meet young Jack Tarver. He and his wife have seen the Granberrys recently and can give you all the nes.' Jack Tarver and his wife were perfectly charming and Jack told me the exciting news that you were writing a play and that Sam Byrd was mad about it and said it was wonderful. I was torn between excitement and pleasure at the news and a very human desire to clout you one on the ear for making us feel so bad. We are ever so pleased, and if you get one minute away from work please give us some of the details. Can we come to the first night of the Broadway opening and do I have to wear orchids? I am not the orchid type, you know, but I will wear them to your first night. {A lengthy paragraph here discusses the health problems and Mitchell's husband and father.] While he has been at home he's been getting plenty of rest and he and I are trying to close up the last of the problems which 'Gone With the Wind' has brought down on us. We can't seem to get rid of all of them and it's maddening to have them hanging on, but the pressure of work is not 1/1000 of what it was a year ago. We actually get to bed by midnight these days and we manage to go to parties and have friends to dinner. Our mail and our business problems and the tourists dropped off sharply the week the Germans went into Holland. The world has far more important things to think about these days than me.  … I had intended writing you some time ago about the latest fragmentary news I had of Herschel's affairs. He and Norma were reconciled some time in April or May. I can't give you any details. Herschel abruptly stopped writing in March and his divorce was to be completed in April. The Clifford Dowdeys, who were then in Tucson, Arizona, wrote me that they had the briefest note from him saying that Norma had come down to Natchez from Jackson and they were packing to go back to Connecticut. We had a brief note from Herschel about a month ago. He and Norma were at the conferences at Durham and Bread Loaf. That's all I now and all the Dowdeys know. I sincerely hope this trouble and separation and reconciliation will lead to a better understanding between the two of them and more happiness than they have had in recent years. Give my best to the boys. Jack Tarver said they were enormously big and I cannot wait to see them. Love".  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 novel's success, Mitchell soon tired of being in the spotlight, and began refusing interview and autograph requests. In this letter, she sounds relieved to be out of the spotlight. JOHN MARSH, Margaret Mitchell's husband from 1925 until her death. Had been a professor of English and philosophy at University of Kentucky-Henderson Community College, and played an important role in the writing of Gone With the Wind., editing her manuscript and offering suggestions. Interestingly, Marsh had been Mitchell's suitor before she married her first husband, ex-footballer and bootlegger Berrien "Red" Upshaw, in 1924. Her stormy marriage to Upshaw ended in divorce, and she married Marsh, an editor at the Atlanta Journal Sunday Journal, where she worked. He later became director of Georgia Power Company's advertising department. 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. He did continue writing, including a fourth novel and some screenplays, but there is no record of the play mentioned here ever being produced. SUSAN MYRICK (DOWDELL) would be recommended by Margaret Mitchell in 1938 as a technical advisor for the filming of Gone With the Wind, advising cast members on accents and southern manners. She would write a book about this experience, White Columns in Hollywood. JACK TARVER, as publisher of the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution, would protect editor Ralph McGill from reprisals for McGill's unpopular support of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Mitchell had met HERSCHEL BRICKELL, a literary critic from Ridgefield, Connecticut, and his wife, Norma, at a writers' retreat at Blowing Rock in August 1936. Brickell had also written a publication day review of Gone With the Wind in the "New York Post", calling the book a "striking piece of literature." The Brickell's did reconcile, and Norma traveled with her husband to Columbia, where he became an influential State Department public affairs officer during World War II. CLIFFORD DOWDEY, known for his books on the Civil War and Reconstruction period, would publish the novel Tidewater in 1943. Toned. Multiple mailing folds. Paper clip impression at top edge. Otherwise, fine condition.