Before Scarlett: Girlhood Writings of Margaret Mitchell

by Margaret Mitchell

Celebrating the centennial of Margaret Mitchell's birth, a unique compilation of childhood writings by the acclaimed author of Gone With the Wind features short stories, fairy tales, journal entries, essays, and single-act plays, all penned from age eight to seventeen. 75,000 first printing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Anthologies

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

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

Reviews

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Before Scarlet" was a wonderful piece of juvenilia by Margaret Mitchell. It showed the origins of her writing style , that developed in to the full blown epic know as "Gone With The Wind". One of the most enjoyable aspects of this work was reading the historical notes that were in the front of each writing vignette. As well as seeing pictures of Mitchell in her youth.

This book is a good introduction to Mitchell's work and should be read before diving into GWTW.

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't quite as interesting as I expected. I liked reading about her childhood and early life, but the stories have never been fully restored and much was missing out of many of them.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mom wrote this book, but it's actually interesting! Her hubbie (my stepdad)'s family was friends with Margaret Mitchell and these are the only early writings to survive b/c she burned everything else...

[June G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has become one of my eternal beach books, because MY beach was actually one of MM's summer haunts as a teenager. I'm a distracted beach reader so these letters, journal entries, essays and stories make perfect light reading to snack on every summer. Just a lot of fun.

[Bulk Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really cute! A collection of stories about war, espionage, forbidden romance, princesses, witches, and more written by a precocious little girl. There are also a few emotionally-charged diary entries.

The heroines of these stories (often named after Margaret Mitchell herself) are plucky, tough, adventurous "tom-boy-girls" who "can do anything a boy can do." They seem to get into knife fights and shoot people just as often as the male characters. You can tell that MM loved exciting adventure stories and did not care, yet, about writing in-depth character studies.

There is some unfortunate racism, although I thought it was interesting she chose to write a Romeo and Juliet-esque romance between two Native Americans. Towards the end there was also a story about a female rancher who falls in love with a Mexican soldier, but the ending was sadly lost, so we will never know what became of that one.

RIP Margaret Mitchell, you would've loved Wattpad.

[Lia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful and charming though I can't help but feel a bit guilty reading these stories knowing she wished to have them destroyed. But they show a young girl's innate creativity and talent, and ambition "to become someone famous" as she always wanted as a child. The collection also shows her gift for fleshing out characters against historical backdrops which was perfected in "Gone With The Wind".

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was fun to see that Margaret had been writing since a child. So glad these little stories were saved for posterity. As an Atlantan, this needs to be on your reading list - if only to show you know the place Margaret holds in our history.

[rinabeana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of the stories and journal entries are incomplete, so just when I was getting interested the story would end abruptly. It was really interesting to see how she evolved as a writer. I subsequently reread Gone with the Wind and she's definitely refined her writing style!

[Candice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Gone With the Wind, so this book was a great choice for me. Liked it a lot, except it was excerpts from her writings so some were incomplete, frustrating because they are great stories. A must read for Gone With the Wind fans.

[Sarah Bierle · Rating 3 out of 5]

An insightful book sharing the early writings and imagination of Margaret Mitchell. Some the stories reveal some common literary threads which appeared in her award-winning novel "Gone With The Wind." There's good commentary from the editors to help readers understand Margaret's youth, education, and familial influences.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before Scarlett: Girlhood Writings of Margaret Mitchell (Hardcover)
by Margaret Mitchell