by Anne Edwards
“They attempted the impossible”: JM to FM(Z), Dec. 1922.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MM replaced Mrs. Roy Flannagan on the AJ.
“swearing she was a speed-demon on a Remington”: MFPAUG.
For four weeks MM was paid by chit. It was not until January 15, 1923, that her name was placed on the AJ payroll. She had abandoned the use of the name Upshaw and was listed as Peggy Mitchell.
“She had something of the look”: MFPAUG.
“There’s a man”: AJM, Jan. 7, 1923.
The desk and chair that MM used at the AJM are on permanent exhibition at the offices of the AJ&C.
“stylish except”: PI.
“She was perky”: Ibid.
“As rugged as”: William Howland, AHBMMM.
“an enthusiasm money”: Ibid.
The galley proof of “Atlanta Sub Debs Pass up Tutankhamen” is in the MMMAUG.
MM was later to say she worked at the AJM six years. Payroll records show this to be incorrect. MM was employed at the AJM from Dec. 20, 1922, to Jan. 15, 1923, on chit, and she was on the payroll from Jan. 15, 1923, to May 3, 1926. She then free-lanced for them until Sept. 1, 1926 — a total of three years and nine months of employment on the AJM.
“due to any Chinese blood”: MM, AP interview, July 1936.
“had the sweetest running movement”: MFPAUG.
“Most of the things I asked”: Ibid.
“taciturnity”: AJ, June 4, 1923.
“Mrs. Maxim, tiny and sweet-faced”: “Maxim Talks of Perfume, War, and Poetry,” AJM, March 4, 1923.
“Writing always came hard”: MFPAUG.
“about as large”: “Hanging over Atlanta in Borglum’s Swing,” AJM, May 6, 1923.
Gutzon Borglum (John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum 1867–1941), an American sculptor, began work on Stone Mountain in 1916, but it was interrupted by war. Work was resumed a few months after MM’s article appeared, but Borglum had a controversy with the Stone Mountain Association and did not complete the sculpture. (See note to page 7.)
“In an enormous”: AJM, May 6, 1923.
“Hey”: Ibid. This is the story that MM retold to HSL in April 1935.
“Football Players Make the Best Husbands”: AJM, June 24, 1923.
“How a Perfect Lady Refuses a Proposal”: AJM, June 17,1923.
“Georgia’s Empress and Women Soldiers”: AJM, May 20, 1923.
Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930), born in Atlanta, worked for the AJ for nearly thirty years and served briefly (1922) as a U.S. senator, the first woman to hold that office.
“large masculine”: AJM, May 20, 1923.
“despite her years”: Ibid.
“who stood six feet tall”: Ibid.
“I wasn’t goin’ to have”: Ibid.
“writer’s block”: MFPAUG.
“Mr. Upshaw demanded” through “Yes sir”: On file, Superior Court, Fulton County, Georgia, dated July 16, 1923 (presented as evidence on June 17, 1924).
CHAPTER NINE
“She walked straight”: Robert Ruark, Saturday Evening Post, April 1950.
“His hair, still a thick shock”: AJM, Jan. 27, 1923.
“romping hieroglyphics”: “Spring Styles in Slang Reach Atlanta,” AJM, April 22, 1923.
“little flirtations”: MM to FM(Z), April 1923.
“Should Husbands Spank Their Wives?”: AJM, Feb. 25, 1923.
“mirrored the flapper era”: MFPAUG.
This second document is on file, Superior Court, Fulton County, dated Oct. 16, 1924.
In 1946, MM wrote a lengthy letter to the mayor of Atlanta nominating MFP for the Atlanta Woman of the Year Award, citing the work MFP had done on the “Marie Rose” advice column. MMMAUG.
“sympathetic but hard-headed”: Ibid.
“Movie Stars Who Call Atlanta Home”: AJM, Nov. 16, 1924.
“When he turned to bow”: “The Sheik Visits Atlanta,” AJM, March 9, 1924.
“What Causes Hiccoughs?”: AJM, Dec. 28, 1924.
“I wish he had not picked”: MM to FMZ, Jan. 7,1925.
“clothes, stockings, hairpins” through “I’ll have to do”: PI.
“Good,” “Inconsistent”: MFP AUG.
“John and I are going to live poor”: FF, p. 71.
Open Door, April 1925.
“brightened the occasion”: MFPAUG.
“there was a flash”: Ibid.
For the rest of her life MM was to claim she was two to four years younger than she was.
“Atlanta Boys Don’t Want Rich Wives”: AJM, July 12, 1925.
“sincerely glad”: PI.
“good fortune at finding”: Kitty Mitchell to JM, June 19, 1925. JM kept this letter for the rest of his life.
“with a touch of reality”: PI.
“very Bebe Daniels”: MFPAUG.
“might be misunderstood”: FF, p. 72.
“a mighty tight squeeze”: EM, AHB, 1931.
“maternal attitude”: PI.
“Put Lee on”: Ibid.
“Peggy would pretend”: Ibid.
CHAPTER TEN
“short skirts”: Open Door, April 1925.
“the only one” through “house full”: MM to FMZ, 1926.
“a helluva lot of research”: PI.
The thirty pages of MM’s Jazz Age novel were destroyed by her secretary, Margaret Baugh, after MM’s death, but Baugh made notes on the story line of what appeared to be the first two chapters of the book.
“Conjuring the Wood Out of Alcohol”: AJM, Feb. 21,1926.
MM’s “Dark town” experience was the inspiration for the scene in Shantytown, GWTW, pp. 777–787.
“My wife used to be”: “Tiger Flowers,” AJM, March 14, 1926.
“Several hundred novels”: HSL, MANYPL.
“bull-headed”: PI.
“hated writing almost as much”: MMM to GB, MANYPL.
“ ’Ropa Carmagin” was given to HSL along with the ms. of GWTW. He returned it to MM in Aug. 1935, suggesting she hold on to it for a while as its short length made it more suitable for a magazine piece than a book. MM later showed it to Edwin Granberry (July 1936) and then destroyed it. Margaret Baugh had made notes about the story, but these were destroyed after MM’s death.
“It looks to me, Peggy”: MM phrased this sentence several ways in various letters and interviews. In all, the words “write a book” appear in the context of the quote.
“She had never understood either of the men”: GWTW, p. 1036.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MM made the statement “Indifference is worse than hate” to a reviewer, Mrs. Frances Zelnicker, in Feb. 1937.
No original ms. pages of GWTW are known to exist outside an envelope in an Atlanta bank vault, which has been sealed since MM’s death. Correspondence in the MANYPL verifies that most notes and minor corrections in the margins of the first ms. submitted by MM were written in John Marsh’s precise hand; and all other corrections in the context of the work, in MM’s hand. MM had the habit of heavily inking out words, sentences, and even paragraphs that had been deleted or changed so that the original version could not be read.
“Something strange”: Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 16, 1936.
“of her own generation”: GWTW, p. 131.
“A master flaw-finder”: JM to Edwin Granberry, Jan. 1937.
Upshaw did, in fact, fill out an application for reenrollment and registered with the UG Alumni Association on March 18, 1927, but did not return to UG. (UG Alumni Archives.)
CHAPTER TWELVE
“The greatest feat”: AJ, May 21, 1927.
“for years”: Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen Twenties (New York: Harper & Row, 1931).
“Oh, it’s just a new kind”: PI.
The death of Gerald O’Hara, GWTW, p. 686.
Scarlett and Rhett are married on p. 845 of GWTW.
“in spite of the fact”: Letters, RH; MM to Clifford Dowdey, July 29, 1937. MM wrote Stephen Vincen
t Benét about this incident (July 9, 1936), claiming that Daniel read all afternoon and that she then purchased the book from him. Daniel is not identified in either of these letters. He identified himself in an article in the AJ (March 21, 1940), to MM’s great irritation.
Gerald O’Hara’s funeral: GWTW, pp. 687–720.
“Lula B. Tolbert”: AJMMM.
“I remember”: Ibid.
“I adore that type”: MM to FMZ, Dec. 1927.
There was no resemblance between Bessie and Mammy in GWTW. There was, however, an elderly black woman in Jonesboro named Aunt Silla, who worked for the Camp family and upon whose knee MM sat to hear stories of the Yankee occupation of Jonesboro during the Civil War. She could well have been the model for Mammy.
Belle Breazing (1858–1940). Her whorehouse was famous for its influential patrons and for being the most luxuriant and orderly house in the South. The day after Belle Breazing’s death, the Lexington Herald ran an obituary on the front page. All copies were sold by 10:00 A.M. and brought private speculators a dollar a piece. In rival papers the story provoked the caustic comment, “Is it true that to get on the front page of the Herald one must operate a house of ill repute?”
“given the world”: PI.
“I never met”: MANYPL.
“Isn’t it a shame”: FF, p. 93.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Do You follow” through “with such fun”: LDC, NYTBR, Dec. 12, 1962.
“What was the death rate”: Letters, RH; MM to Gilbert Govan, July 8, 1936.
“It was especially interesting”: JM to FMZ, Sept. 20, 1931.
“a good enough way”: MM to LDC, Arpil 7, 1936, MANYPL.
“expect that she could be writing”: Ibid.
“Tobacco Road district”: MM to LDC, July 8, 1935, MANYPL.
“like a crotchety old woman”: MM to HSL, July 9, 1935, MANYPL.
“I would not be at all” through “encouraging words”: MM to HSL, Aug. 15, 1935, MANYPL.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“as tired as a hound”: MM to LDC, July 7, 1935, MANYPL.
“hurtling out of a side street”: Ibid.
“clumsy or unlucky”: MM to HSL. July 9, 1935, MANYPL.
There was an oral agreement that Macmillan would pay MM a small fee if they ever published an author she had found for them. This never occurred.
“Please hold off your request”: HSL to MM, July 17, 1935, MANYPL.
“Macmillan terrible excited”: LDC to MM, July 21, 1935, MANYPL.
“My enthusiasm”: HSL to MM, July 21, 1935, MANYPL.
“necessitated a Luminal” through “Coming of a legal”: MM to HSL, July 21, 1935, MANYPL.
“This book is really magnificent”: C. W. Everett to HSL, July 2, 1935, MANYPL.
“so swell,” “bearing up.” and “Luminal and ice”: MM to HSL, July 27, 1935, MANYPL.
“the author should”: C. W. Everett to HSL, July 2, 1935, MANYPL.
“V, band b in the book” through “to Pansies as Fairies”: MM to HSL, July 27, 1935, MANYPL.
Both Wade Hampton, Pansy (Scarlett) O’Hara’s son by Charles Hamilton, and Ella, her daughter by Frank Kennedy, were cut from the film version of GWTW, as was Will Benteen, one of the book’s major characters, who married Suellen and ran Tara for his sister-in-law.
“The best way I can place these”: MM to HSL, July 27, 1935, MANYPL.
“My dear Mrs. Marsh”: HSL to MM, July 30, 1935, MANYPL.
“none of the elements”: F. Scott Fitzgerald to Edmund Wilson, F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers, Princeton University Library.
“a lawyer of the old school” through “What if Macmillan”: MM to HSL. Aug. 1, 1935, MANYPL.
“My dear child”: LDC to MM, Aug. 5, 1935, MANYPL.
“of bad faith”: MM to HSL, Aug. 6, 1935, MANYPL.
“After I asked”: HSL to MM, Aug. 15, 1935, MANYPL.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“In the name of God”: MM to C. W. Everett, Aug. 19, 1936, MANYPL.
“Tempo” story: Ibid.
“It’s competent”: MM to LDC, Sept. 15, 1935, MANYPL.
“the zip and bustle,” “dare marriage,” and “somehow got buried”: Medora Field Perkerson to Carroll G. Bowen, Oxford University Press, May 21, 1954, MFPAUG.
“bright button” and “Peggy’s energies”: MFPAUG.
“fifty dollars from”: MM to LDC, Sept. 22, 1935, MANYPL.
“I saw no reason”: Ibid.
The Battle of New Hope Church: GWTW, p. 300.
Final fortifications of Atlanta were originally in GWTW, chapter 16, and were then moved to part 3, chapter 17.
“just been rescued from”: MM to LDC, Oct. 16, 1935, MANYPL.
“poor photographer”: Ibid.
“of all the characters”: Ibid.
“amateurish”: MM to HSL, Oct. 30, 1935, MANYPL.
“what on earth”: Ibid.
“Really I don’t know”: HSL to LDC, Nov. 1, 1935, MANYPL.
“I at once”: HSL to MM, Nov. 3, 1935, MANYPL.
Other titles known to be submitted by MM were: Milestones, Jeltison, Ba! Ba! Black Sheep, Not in Our Stars, and Bugles Sang True.
“like the snows of yesteryear”: MM to HSL, Oct. 30, 1935, MANYPL.
“somebody said”: LDC to MM, Nov. 4, 1935, MANYPL.
“had fought with the Irish”: GWTW, p. 421.
“Was Tara still standing”: GWTW, p. 397.
“Can’t see”: an expression frequently used by MM in letters and interviews.
“Peggy collapsed”: JM to LDC, Jan. 21, 1936, MANYPL.
“It may be that she will never”: Ibid.
“I assure you my remarks”: LDC to JM, Jan. 17, 1936, MANYPL.
LDC and her husband, Allan Taylor, wrote several juvenile books together under the pseudonym Allan Dwight. Macmillan published Kentucky Cargo (the contract for which LDC mentions to MM) in 1939.
“constant mystification” and “From the length”: JM to LDC, Feb. 9, 1936, MANYPL.
“about as long as”: HSL memo to staff, July 30, 1935, MANYPL.
“Miss Prink and I”: MM to HSL, Aug. 1, 1941, MANYPL.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Forget it Louie”: Roland Flamini, Scarlett, Rhett & a Cast of Thousands (New York: Macmillan, Inc., 1975).
“It seems a very widespread rumor”: Letters, RH; MM to VM, July 11, 1936.
“nothing in the world”: MM to LDC, April 20. 1936, MANYPL.
“long and pointed” through “I have become”: MM to LDC, April 24, 1936, MANYPL.
“blew up” and “when sick people”: MM to LDC, April 30, 1936, MANYPL.
“and well, hundreds of others”: MFPAJ&C.
“had to look through nearly a million”: Ibid.
“I am very small” through “but while I was”: Macmillan pamphlet, Sept. 1936, MANYPL.
“nearly threw up”: MM to LDC, May 12, 1936, MANYPL.
“of the nightmare”: Ibid.
“me laying me down”: Ibid.
“I’d hate to land in New York”: MM to HSL, May 23, 1936, MANYPL.
“like talking with” through “indelicate stories”: MM to HSL, June 1, 1936, MANYPL.
One story MM told at the Atlanta Library Club luncheon was about page stopping to ask the date for planting cotton from an old farmer spreading manure by the side of a road in Clayton County one hot summer day. He told her, and then asked her what being a writer was like. She answered that it was hard work and made you scratch and sweat and smell. “Just like spreadin’ manure!” the farmer exclaimed.
“I suppose you could call”: Letters, RH; MM to Joseph Henry Jackson, June 1, 1936.
“I haven’t any literary style”: Ibid.
“My dear Mr. Edwards”: Letters, RH; MM to Henry Stillwell Edwards, June 14, 1936.
“April, May and June of 1936”: JM, AHBMMM.
“Wasn’t her heroine a baggage”: MFPAUG.
“very relieved” through “By the way”: MM to HSL, May 25, 1936, MANYPL
.
“Mrs. Marsh is to know”: Memo dated May 24, 1936, MANYPL.
“What is it”: Flamini: Scarlett, Rhett & a Cast of Thousands.
Telegram dated May 28, 1936, signed “Bette Davis” and sent from Burbank, California: MANYPL.
“I beg, urge, coax, and plead”: Kay Brown to David O. Selznick. Richard Harwell, GWTW: The Screenplay by Sidney Howard (New York: Macmillan, Inc., 1980).
“Most sorry to have to say no”: David O. Selznick to Kay Brown. Ibid.
“Translate dialect”: MM to LDC, June 6, 1936, MANYPL.
“I shouldn’t even think”: Ibid.
“I wasn’t suspecting it”: MM to GB, June 6, 1936, MANYPL.
The comments from literary celebrities were made in letters and reviews and used by Macmillan in ads for the book.
“We are ready to stand or fall”: Edwin Granberry, the New York Sun, June 30, 1936.
“striking piece of fiction”: Herschel Brickell, the New York post, June 30, 1936.
“a lather of apprehension”: MFPAUG.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“She’s small-breasted”: MM to LDC, July 3, 1936, MANYPL.
“the sole and innocent intention”: Newsweek, Dec. 18, 1939.
“As God is my witness”: GWTW, p. 428.
“decks of the Queen Mary”: Frank Daniel to MM, Aug. 19, 1936, MMMAUG.
“why in Hell” through “just get in the car”: MM to LDC, July 3, 1936, MANYPL.
“After reading your book”: MFPAUG.
“hide out in the mountains”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, July 7, 1936.
“a bundle of reviews”: Letters, RH; MM to Gilbert Govan, July 8, 1936.
“As you may observe”: Letters, RH; MM to Herschel Brickell, July 7, 1936.
“My dear Mr. Granberry”: Letters, RH; MM to Edwin Granberry, July 7, 1936.
All of these letters are in the MMMAUG.
“I am not in the best condition”: Letters, RH; MM to Stephen Vincent Benét, July 8, 1936.
“For all I know”: Letters, RH; MM to Donald Adams, July 9, 1936.
“I never intended” and “I wouldn’t go through”: Ibid.
“Life has been”: Letters, RH; MM to GB, july 8, 1936. The $5,000 check sent by GB to MM. She had recieved the check six weeks prior to this letter. Gainesville is at most a two-hour drive from Atlanta under even the worst of road conditions. As MM started out on this trip by 1:00 P.M., it is hard to understand why she was afraid she might fall asleep. She could, however, have been suffering from the anxiety that she would crash — a fear she often had when driving a car. She never did go “back and beyond the mountains,” but remained in the small city of Gainesville (pop. approx. 8,000 in 1936).