In many places you can read that one of the most famous novels of the 20th century initially did not interest any publisher. We checked if this is true.

On the Russian platform of independent journalism Paypress Margaret Mitchell's novel is in first place in the list of must-read books, with the annotation: “It was refused to be published 38 times, but nevertheless, the only book written throughout her life made the author famous throughout the world!” “Gone with the Wind” (along with the works of Stephen King, JK Rowling and many others) often appear in collections of similar facts about refusals, the main idea of which is that you cannot give up, you need to believe in the power of your talent. In this context, the book is mentioned by the famous science fiction writer Alexey Kalugin. Similar collections are also popular in the West - for example, one of them is presented on a business social network LinkedIn as an excerpt from William Long's 10 Tips: How I Wrote My First Book. From another book you can to know, that such a list was once compiled by Kalugin’s world-famous colleague Ray Bradbury. The American, allegedly, at one time received about 700 refusals before his first publication, so he decided to motivate novice authors. Among other authoritative sources where you can find the mentioned fact are websites New York Publishing Communities, National Library of Belarus, UCLA, book by Carol Ann Lindsey "Rich Writer, Poor Writer" and many other resources.

Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, the capital of Georgia, the hometown of her famous heroine Scarlett O'Hara. From childhood, Margaret was imbued with the atmosphere of the slaveholding South, listening to numerous stories (her father was the chairman of the local historical society, and two grandfathers fought on the side of the southerners in the Civil War). From the age of 17, Mitchell had to face blows of fate: first, in 1918, her fiancé died from wounds received on the fields of the First World War, and a few months later the Spanish flu virus took her mother. In 1922, she began her career as a reporter and then got married for the first time, but unsuccessfully. Three years later, a second marriage followed (with a best man at the first wedding), and already in 1926 Mitchell suffered an ankle injury and was forced to end her short career as a journalist. From then on, she became a housewife under the care of her husband.

In the same 1926, on the advice of her husband, who was tired of bringing armfuls of books from the library, Mitchell sat down to write her own novel. Looking ahead, let's say that there were still ten years left before the release of Gone with the Wind - on June 30, 1936, the book was published by Macmillan. The novel immediately became a bestseller - by the end of the year more than a million copies had been sold. By 2014 in the USA "Gone with the Wind" conceded Only the Bible is in popularity, and the global circulation for all time amounted to about 30 million copies. Also in 1936, Mitchell sold the rights to the film adaptation, which, in turn, will become the highest-grossing film in cinema history.

Thus, the failures, if any, must have occurred sometime between 1926 and 1936—indeed, more than enough time for one novel to be completed. However, facts are stubborn things. How it turns out, Mitchell actually wrote the novel extremely slowly, adding a chapter from time to time, having written most of it by 1929. In 1934, as a result of a car accident, she received another injury, and the neck brace, which prevented her from going outside, was the factor that prompted her to make a decisive attempt to finish the book of her life. It so happened that in 1935, Harold Latham, vice president of the aforementioned Macmillan company, undertook trip across the southern United States in search of new authors. He had already heard about Mitchell from Lois Cole, his assistant and friend of Margaret. “If she can write the way she talks, it must be a wonderful book,” Cole said at the time. Arriving in Atlanta, Latham undertook attempt to meet Mitchell, but she turned out to be a shy woman and politely declined all of Latham’s requests to look at her work. Three days passed, Latham was desperate and in a few hours had to take a train to New Orleans. And then the phone rang in the editor’s hotel room. As it turned out, Margaret Mitchell came to Latham herself and was waiting for him in the lobby. The editor later said that he would never forget this picture: a tiny woman was sitting on the sofa, and next to her, two stacks of envelopes with sheets of paper rose up to her shoulders. “Here, take this thing before I change my mind,” she said. In a number of sources indicatedthat she was prompted to make a spontaneous decision by the mockery of her colleagues who doubted her abilities.

As a result, the vice president of Macmillan bought another suitcase - for the manuscript - and already at night on the train he got acquainted with it, immediately realizing what kind of fish he had attacked. According to sources, Latham became the first person since Mitchell and her husband to read an advance version of Gone with the Wind. When in the morning in New Orleans he received a telegram “Please return the manuscript back. “I changed my mind,” Latham was no longer going to take a step back. On August 6, 1935 it was signed contract, and it took Mitchell another six months to finish writing the novel. What fate awaited the novel next is described above.

This story is partially confirmed by the words of Margaret Mitchell herself from letters, which she sent to a book dealer in June 1936: “I wrote the book between 1926 and 1929 and never tried to sell it. I never dreamed that it would sell, so I didn't prepare a neatly typed copy to send and get rejected. When Mr. Latham from Macmillan went to Atlanta last year and got a very dirty, sloppy copy and bought it, I was amazed.”

Thus, the story of 38 refusals to publish the novel Gone with the Wind is fictitious. The book was published after the publishers first familiarized themselves with it, and at first Margaret Mitchell resisted this.