American · b. 2000
Margaret Mitchell wrote one novel and became one of the best-selling authors of all time. "Gone with the Wind" (1936) won the Pulitzer Prize and sold more copies than any American novel. Scarlett O'Hara's survival through the Civil War and Reconstruction captivated readers; the 1939 film adaptation became a cultural monument. Mitchell spent ten years writing the book and refused to write a sequel. She died in 1949 after being struck by a car in Atlanta, the city where she was born and where her novel is set.