“SHE SAT at a spindly sewing table in an alcove of the front room under two small high windows. On the table was her Remington portable typewriter. At its left, a pile of yellow paper; at its right a growing pile of typed sheets. Margaret had no deadline. What she had was a story so nearly complete in her mind that she could write in any chapter at any time. She would write now toward the beginning, now in the middle, now at the end. . . . When Margaret completed a chapter she stowed it in a large manila envelope, which she stacked on the floor in a gradually heightening mound beside the sewing table. As 1927 passed, and the early months of 1928 arrived, the pile of envelopes grew nearly to the table’s height and Margaret pushed it against the wall and started another. By the end of 1928, one stack of envelopes was solid enough to sit on—and some callers did. . . . For a while she used two or three envelopes as a prop under the leg of an ailing sofa. . .
Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta: The Author of Gone With the Wind, by Finis Farr. Morrow, $5.95
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