On behalf of all of us at Pequot Library in Southport, Conn., thank you to the Atlanta History Center and its staff for the wonderful exhibit they are building around our original typescript of the final four chapters of “Gone With the Wind.” Titled “Atlanta’s Book: The Lost Gone With the Wind Manuscript,” the exhibit runs from June through September of this year.
The manuscript has been part of the special collections at Pequot Library since it was given to the library in the 1950s by George P. Brett Jr. Brett was head of Macmillan, the publisher of the novel in 1936, and later president of Pequot Library, a place he had loved since childhood.
The manuscript was never really lost. It had, after all, been exhibited twice before at Pequot. It was just waiting in the safety of our facility for the right moment to propel it onto the national stage. That moment was provided this year by the 75th anniversary of the book.
The library decided to exhibit the manuscript once again and to draw attention to its existence, to make it available to help the country celebrate this milestone in the history of one of America’s most popular and enduring literary works.
As part of that decision, we realized that, after its exhibit at our library, we should share the manuscript with Atlanta where the book was written and where Margaret Mitchell lived and wrote the book. We set out to find a top-rate institution that would safeguard it like the national treasure it is, but that would also exhibit it in the best possible interpretive context and make it accessible to the greatest number of people.
The Atlanta History Center was the perfect choice. Their staff responded quickly and enthusiastically. They drew on their incredibly rich collections for other objects and manuscripts, and have invested considerable resources in providing a perfect setting for our material in a beautiful and thoughtfully designed exhibit.
I also want to thank John Wiley and Ellen Brown, co-authors of the definitive history of the novel, “Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood.” They have been of help to all of us in Southport and Atlanta in understanding the complex history of the book, and the relationship between Mitchell and George Brett.
We see this rewarding collaboration with the Atlanta History Center as a part of a postscript to the history of the novel. It is an example of the way cultural institutions can work together to bring the magic in their collections to life. It is an example of why libraries and historical societies matter. It is an example of how the North and the South can work together. While it is indeed “Atlanta’s book,” “Gone With the Wind” is also America’s book, and this exhibit helps make that point.
To get the full story, and to see the typescript that Ellen Brown has called “one of America’s most precious literary treasures,” be sure to visit the exhibit, which opened Saturday at the Atlanta History Center, as a beginning to Atlanta’s celebration of the book’s 75th year.
Daniel Snydacker is executive director of the Pequot Library in Southport, Conn.
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