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MITCHELL, Margaret. Four typed letters signed ("Margaret") to Herschel Brickell, Atlanta, 9 October 1936 to 6 June 1938. Together 6 pages, small folio, all single-spaced, on her stationery with name embossed in blue at top of each sheet, a holograph postscript in one letter, usual folds, with stamped, addressed envelopes.
"TALKING TO FRIENDS AND STRANGERS ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT SCARLETT GOT RHETT BACK"
Two of the letters (9 October 1936 and 6 June 1938), each one page, are primarily about arranging meetings with Brickell in New York, travel plans, appointments, etc. (the second letter does mention fellow Southern writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings). 4 November 1937 (about advising on the Southern accent of an actress testing for the role of the madam Belle Watling in the movie of Gone With the Wind): "...I had a long telephone conversation with Katherine Brown, of the Selznick International Pictures in New York...She said they were testing a well known actress for the part of Belle Watling. The actress was born in Wisconsin and, naturally, did not have a Southern accent. In the midst of the test it suddently occurred to the studio that Belle Watling not only had a Southern accent but probably a different accent from the more educated characters. So Miss Brown got me on the phone and asked if Belle's accent would have been different from Scarlett's and Melanie's and in what way. I did the best I could over the phone. I told her that the accent would have varied as it always does between the educated and the illiterate. I told her most of the prostitutes of the day were recruited from the freshly landed immigrants or (here in the South) the daughters of small farmers who had been led astray, cracker families and poor white mountaineers..." 6 January [1938 -- misdated "1937" by Mitchell]. This is a three-page chatty letter mainly about family affairs and domestic incidents, but with a couple of references to Gone With the Wind: "...'author's foot.' This last named disease comes from standing all day on street corners and in department stores talking to friends and strangers about whether or not Scarlett got Rhett back. I am sure policemen must suffer these...afflications under some other name...I guess our 'breathing spell' is over [beginning a 50-word holograph postscript]. This morning we learned by long distance that 'G.W.T.W.' [Gone With the Wind] had been pirated in Chile -- So it's been a mad, wild day with the State Department in one ear & Macmillan [her publishers] in the other..." (4)
"TALKING TO FRIENDS AND STRANGERS ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT SCARLETT GOT RHETT BACK"
Two of the letters (9 October 1936 and 6 June 1938), each one page, are primarily about arranging meetings with Brickell in New York, travel plans, appointments, etc. (the second letter does mention fellow Southern writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings). 4 November 1937 (about advising on the Southern accent of an actress testing for the role of the madam Belle Watling in the movie of Gone With the Wind): "...I had a long telephone conversation with Katherine Brown, of the Selznick International Pictures in New York...She said they were testing a well known actress for the part of Belle Watling. The actress was born in Wisconsin and, naturally, did not have a Southern accent. In the midst of the test it suddently occurred to the studio that Belle Watling not only had a Southern accent but probably a different accent from the more educated characters. So Miss Brown got me on the phone and asked if Belle's accent would have been different from Scarlett's and Melanie's and in what way. I did the best I could over the phone. I told her that the accent would have varied as it always does between the educated and the illiterate. I told her most of the prostitutes of the day were recruited from the freshly landed immigrants or (here in the South) the daughters of small farmers who had been led astray, cracker families and poor white mountaineers..." 6 January [1938 -- misdated "1937" by Mitchell]. This is a three-page chatty letter mainly about family affairs and domestic incidents, but with a couple of references to Gone With the Wind: "...'author's foot.' This last named disease comes from standing all day on street corners and in department stores talking to friends and strangers about whether or not Scarlett got Rhett back. I am sure policemen must suffer these...afflications under some other name...I guess our 'breathing spell' is over [beginning a 50-word holograph postscript]. This morning we learned by long distance that 'G.W.T.W.' [Gone With the Wind] had been pirated in Chile -- So it's been a mad, wild day with the State Department in one ear & Macmillan [her publishers] in the other..." (4)