“FROM ONE SEMINARY GIRL TO ANOTHER”: FIRST EDITION OF GONE WITH THE WIND, INSCRIBED BY MARGARET MITCHELL
MITCHELL, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. New York: Macmillan, 1936. Thick octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
First edition, in first-issue dust jacket, of this American classic, inscribed by the author: “From one Seminary girl to another. Margaret Mitchell.”
"This is beyond doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best… It has been a long while since the American public has been offered such a bounteous feast of excellent story-telling" (New York Times Book Review, 1936). Said to be the fastest selling novel in the history of American publishing (50,000 copies in a single day), Gone with the Wind won Mitchell the Pulitzer Prize. First printing, with "Published May, 1936" on the copyright page and no mention of other printings. First-issue dust jacket with Gone with the Wind listed in second column of booklist on back panel. Books of the Century, 111. Eicher 730. In Tall Cotton 125. The inscription references Washington Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, which Mitchell attended from 1914 to 1918. Bookseller ticket.
Interior fine; light scattered foxing to fore edge. Original cloth extremely good, with very light rubbing and toning to spine. Some wear to extremities of bright and unfaded dust jacket, with some chipping to spine head; a half-inch closed tear to spine head, affecting the 'E' in "GONE"; and a one-inch shallow open tear to top front panel. An extremely good inscribed copy.