Free Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Ellen F. Brown, Jr. John Wiley Page B

ought to assume the cost of correcting errors. The couple also declined to send a list of stylistic rules. Mitchell did not have such a list and did not think an understandable one could be created. She would be glad to answer any questions Macmillan had and would catch what mistakes she could down the line.
    With those issues settled and the manuscript in the hands of the production department, Cole turned her attention to the book’s release, now three months away. Few people at Macmillan had seen the entire novel, but many, including Brett, were eager to do so. 16 Cole especially wanted the salesmen responsible for promoting Gone With the Wind to get a chance to read it before the release date. These “travelers,” as they were called, played a key role in disseminating important industry news and gossip to remote locations around the country. Wanting to keep the troops enthused, Cole asked Mitchell to send along any extra copies of the chapters that she might have for Macmillan to pass around.
    As it turns out, Cole had nothing to worry about. Excitement remained high among the Macmillan ranks. Convinced that Gone With the Wind was a winner, the travelers had been spreading the word since the year-end sales conference. Having only a skeletal understanding of the plot, they took the commonsense approach of focusing on the universally appealing tale of how a big-city editor discovered a spirited Southern female reporter-turned-housewife who spent a decade toiling in obscurity to write an epic American novel. (Absent from the cast of characters was Cole as the fairy godmother.) The stirring account caught on like wildfire. As a columnist in the Atlanta Constitution would note a year later when describing the book’s fantastic success, “The story of Miss Mitchell’s strike is almost as fascinating as the story she wrote between the boards.” 17 Some of Macmillan’s salespeople got so carried away that they dramatized the story almost beyond recognition. Marsh’s sister, Frances Zane, worked in a Wilmington, Delaware, bookstore at the time and relayed to the couple the story of a Macmillan salesman who told her the manuscript had been presented to Latham in a wooden box by a Mitchell family servant. When Mitchell reported the exaggeration to a Macmillan representative in Atlanta, the man expressed regret that he had not thought of it himself. 18
    In the middle of February 1936, a letter arrived at Macmillan headquarters offering unmistakable proof that interest was building. Samuel Goldwyn, Inc., a major Hollywood production firm, wanted information on Gone With the Wind , the new book by “Mary Mitchell.” 19 Not bad for a book by an unknown author that only a handful of people had read.

    In Atlanta, Mitchell waited for the galleys to arrive from Macmillan and continued to fret over the manuscript. One issue in particular that caused her to worry was whether she had identified the appropriate planting season for pre–boll weevil cotton. Unable to put her mind at rest over the detail, she wrote to the agriculturist who had helped months earlier on the buckwheat question to see if he could offer any assistance. Mitchell conceded that nobody outside of Georgia would know if she got it wrong, “but I would know and would probably wake up screaming in the night about it.” 20 He assured her she had the correct date.
    On February 12, a mere two weeks after the final chapters had been sent to New York, the Marshes received the initial set of galleys. Printed on long sheets of paper with several pages of text per sheet, the galleys are an author’s first glimpse at what the finished book will look like. 21 Seeing them tends to be a difficult experience, especially for a novice like Mitchell. Cole summed up the experience: “There is a certain amount of excitement, as well as anguish, in seeing your brain child in cold type.” 22 Some authors barely recognize their