Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind is perhaps one of the most famous American novels of the 20th century. Her life story is equally compelling. As much the classic Southern belle as Scarlett O'Hara, she shunned her privileged background to forge a career in the male-dominated newspaper business, lending her support to numerous radical cultural and intellectual movements. Her one and only novel sold over one million copies in the first six months alone. This biography captures the provincial Southern culture that influenced Mitchell's writing and examines her life after the epic.