The pampered daughter of a wealthy Georgian plantation owner of Irish descent,

sixteen-year-old Scarlett O’Hara soon realizes that young men can’t resist her

charms, despite her forthright manners and her refusal to embrace her mother’s

ladylike ways. Her romantic intrigues lead her to an early marriage, but when the

war between the Union and the Southern States breaks out and she is left a young

widow, Scarlett’s life is turned upside down, and she finds herself embroiled,

together with the world surrounding her, in a long struggle for survival.

Both a coming-of-age tale and a historical epic, Gone with the Wind is regarded as

one of the great American novels, and is perhaps one of the most popular stories in

the Western canon. Famously inspiring the iconic 1939 Oscar-winning film starring

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and Clark Gable as the rakish but cynical Rhett Butler, it is

Margaret Mitchell’s only published novel, and a living testament to the irrepressible

resilience of the American spirit.