Details
MITCHELL, Margaret. Typed letter signed ("Margaret") to Herschel Brickell, Atlanta, 8 February 1937. 3 pages, small folio, single-spaced, on her stationery with name embossed in blue at top of each sheet., several minor ink corrections by her, usual folds, with stamped, addressed envelope.
"THE REVIEWS...IF THEY'D BEEN WRITTEN BY UNRECONSTRUCTED REBELS THEY COULDN'T BE BETTER"
A long chatty letter in which the author of Gone With the Wind writes of her husband's hospitalization (for hemorrhoids), her new office, "the invasion of editors" seeking short stories and articles, foreign reviews of her book, and the unceasing requests for her autograph: "...the amount of money editors offer is appalling. No literature, even of permanent value, is worth what they offer and they don't even want literature of permanent worth. I don't believe if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John offered to write some more Gospels, they'd be worth the prices that have been offered me. Perhaps some day when I am ending my days in the poor house I'll regret not writing some tripe and selling it ... The reviews [of Gone With the Wind] have begun to come in from South Africa and India and, Herschel, I give you my word, if they'd been written by unreconstructed Rebels they couldn't be better. I get cold chills up and down my back reading the Indian ones ... I found that every time I autographed one book, a hundred friends and relatives of the book owner descended on me. So it's self preservation with me. I know you won't believe me but recently as I was leaving the funeral of a cousin, a strange woman had the gall to stop me between the church and the car and ask me to autograph her book. Some people aint got no notions of decency!..."
"THE REVIEWS...IF THEY'D BEEN WRITTEN BY UNRECONSTRUCTED REBELS THEY COULDN'T BE BETTER"
A long chatty letter in which the author of Gone With the Wind writes of her husband's hospitalization (for hemorrhoids), her new office, "the invasion of editors" seeking short stories and articles, foreign reviews of her book, and the unceasing requests for her autograph: "...the amount of money editors offer is appalling. No literature, even of permanent value, is worth what they offer and they don't even want literature of permanent worth. I don't believe if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John offered to write some more Gospels, they'd be worth the prices that have been offered me. Perhaps some day when I am ending my days in the poor house I'll regret not writing some tripe and selling it ... The reviews [of Gone With the Wind] have begun to come in from South Africa and India and, Herschel, I give you my word, if they'd been written by unreconstructed Rebels they couldn't be better. I get cold chills up and down my back reading the Indian ones ... I found that every time I autographed one book, a hundred friends and relatives of the book owner descended on me. So it's self preservation with me. I know you won't believe me but recently as I was leaving the funeral of a cousin, a strange woman had the gall to stop me between the church and the car and ask me to autograph her book. Some people aint got no notions of decency!..."