A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story

Margaret Mitchell, depicted as rebellious and spirited like her fictional character Scarlett O'Hara, was raised in a comfortably middle-class home in Atlanta, where she listened to her grandmother's tales of the Civil War and the destruction of the city by Union forces. Known as Peggy in her youth, she attended Smith College in Massachusetts but disliked it and returned to Atlanta. There, her somewhat scandalous reputation was further fueled by her first marriage to Red Upshaw, a bootlegging playboy. Her second husband later encouraged her to develop her writing beyond feature articles for *The Atlanta Journal*. Her first and only novel became one of the best-selling books of all time.