Gone with the Wind, a novel about Civil War Georgia, was published in 1936. It was written by Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) of Atlanta, Georgia and made into a movie in 1939 by producer David O. Selznick. Copyright soon became an issue as demands for foreign translations, plays, musicals, and sequels began. After Margaret Mitchell's death in 1949, her husband, John Marsh (1895-1952), handled her estate. Control of the literary rights was passed to Margaret Mitchell's brother Stephens, after John's death. Stephens Mitchell (1896-1983) was an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia.
The collection consists of the literary estate papers from two filing cabinets of the offices of the Gone with the Wind Literary Rights, arranged and labeled as they were. One cabinet contained papers dealing with the foreign translations of the book, a Japanese musical production of Gone with the wind, plagiarism accusations from Susan Lawrence Davis, David Selznick musical rights, local museums and Margaret Mitchell namesakes, and fan mail. The 2nd cabinet dealt mainly with a Stephens Mitchell lawsuit against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer over sequel rights and includes court documents and correspondence. There are also papers relating to his lawsuit against Showcase Atlanta for a stage production titled "Scarlett Fever." Also included are printed material, phonograph records, videotapes, and cassette tapes. Of special interest are letters from Gone With the Wind movie actors, post-World War II letters from translators of Gone With the Wind in France and Czechoslovakia, a journal of Wilbur Kurtz written while he was advisor for the filming of the movie, and gossipy letters to Margaret Mitchell from his wife Annie Laurie Kurtz as she watched the filming.
Related materials available in the following collections of this repository: Stephens Mitchell family papers, ms2874; Margaret Mitchell family papers, ms905; Margaret Mitchell photographs, ms3031; Margaret Mitchell letters, ms3326; Mitchell-Marsh family papers, ms3060; Scrapbook of Margaret Mitchell's accident and death, ms1614.
