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Dynamo Going to Waste: Letters to Allen Edee, 1919-1921

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A collection of letters written by Mitchell to a college friend during the period, after her mother's death, that she ran her father's prominent Atlanta home.

150 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

60 people want to read

About the author

Margaret Mitchell

140 books3,053 followers
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell, popularly known as Margaret Mitchell, was an American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her novel, Gone with the Wind, published in 1936. The novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 28 million copies. An American film adaptation, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and received a record-breaking number of Academy Awards.
-Wikipedia

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5 stars
16 (45%)
4 stars
12 (34%)
3 stars
3 (8%)
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3 (8%)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 15, 2025
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➕ I wanted to reread this because Margaret Mitchell (author Gone with the Wind) is my favorite author, & I think this book is the closest one can get to her. She’s so candid in this collection. Letters really reveal a side of people that biographies can only attempt to replicate. These letters are especially exciting because they were written in the 1920s, when Mitchell was very young.

Mitchell wrote these letters in snatches, usually just as she came home from a date and the house was sleeping, or while she was waiting for a date. She styled them very much like diary entries, simply capturing the thoughts in her head when she sat down to write, & sometimes breaking up letters over several days, headed by the time and date. So they read very much in the moment, & often catch her while she is highly annoyed, waiting for a date who is LATE. A capital crime in her book. The letters reflect deep sorrow, youthful humor, and candid moments that make Mitchell seem as if she is right in the room, rather than writing from nearly a century ago.

This collection is a quick read at only 138 pages. I’m unfortunately quite a slow reader, or I’d have certainly finished it in an afternoon.
Profile Image for Mamie.
130 reviews5 followers
October 16, 2020
Interesting letters! They felt like a conversation, and I loved the colloquialisms back from the twenties southern high society. Very well written, and it was great to see into the world of Margaret Mitchell--her personality, her environment, and her personal life.
Profile Image for ┊ ♡ Cordelia ♡┊.
269 reviews
January 26, 2024
Read 2x. LAST COMPLETED MAY 2015. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In which this is MY FAVORITE BOOK EVER on Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone with the Wind), & I urge all the folks most ardently to read it for it is LETTERS BY MITCHELL in HER OWN WORDS before she was famous. SHE WAS A TEENAGER. SHE HAS THE ROBUST FEELINGS. SHE IS MOST AMUSING.

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹
Profile Image for Amira Rutherford-Moore.
59 reviews11 followers
February 15, 2017
Just Sigh worthy,
The man she writes to( Allen Edee) is the true inspiration behind Rhett Butler. Really. I can't believe it. As you read his description and how he teases her and they get on....Its so plain and right there!!!!!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

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