Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #102309
Cost: $2,500.00

Typed letter - Signed .

Margaret Mitchell

"YOU WERE KIND TO WRITE AS THOUGH SCARLETT AND RHETT WERE REAL PEOPLE TO YOU. THERE IS NO GREATER COMPLIMENT": SCARCE 1936 TYPED LETTER SIGNED BY MARGARET MITCHELL THE SAME YEAR AS PUBLICATION OF GONE WITH THE WIND

MITCHELL, Margaret. Typed letter signed. Atlanta, Georgia, December 4, 1936. Original ivory leaf (6-1/2 by 11 inches), typescript and signature on the recto; later tan leaf (6-3/4 by 9-1/4 inches) with mounted original clipped postmark and printed return address label. $2500.

Scarce December 4, 1936 typed letter signed by Margaret Mitchell the same year as publication of Gone with the Wind, expressing her deeply personal thanks to a reader, writing in part: "I wish I could tell you how much I appreciated the letter you sent me… You were kind to write as though Scarlett and Rhett were real people to you. There is no greater compliment that can be bestowed up an author than this."

With the publication of Gone With the Wind in mid-1936, Margaret Mitchell became "an overnight celebrity" (Edwards, 20). This letter, in typescript and written from Atlanta by Mitchell at the end of that year, reads: "Atlanta, Georgia, December 4, 1936. My dear Miss George: I wish I could tell you how much I appreciated the letter you sent me about 'Gone With the Wind'. You were kind to write as though Scarlett and Rhett were real people to you. There is no greater compliment that can be bestowed upon an author than this. I am sorry you wept about the ending but I can't help feeling terribly flattered that you did! Sincerely [signed] Margaret Mitchell [typescript] Margaret Mitchell." This early and wonderfully personal response signed by Mitchell in the novel's year of publication is quite rare, and important to any Mitchell collection. Accompanying the original letter, which contains a trace of glue remnants to the verso, is a separate later leaf (with matching trace of glue remnants) containing a clipped original postmark of "Atlanta, GA., Dec 8, 1:30 PM, 1936," and a clipped original return address label printed with Mitchell's Atlanta Address of 4 East Seventeenth Street, N.E., each tipped to the leaf recto: both seemingly from the letter's original envelope. Address label with small loss to top edge minimally affecting print.

Text and signature crisp and dark, faint foldlines. A fine signed letter.

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