It was on May 3, 1937, that 'Gone With The Wind', Margaret Mitchell's timeless treasure in literary history, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Even as it evoked criticism for glorifying slavery, the 1,037-page novel published in 1936, gave wings to imagination, transporting the reader, and later the moviegoer, into the American South in the background of the Civil War and the Restoration Era. Mitchell probably never quite imagined that her novel would turn out the way it did.
A journalist with the 'Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine', she wrote the book out of boredom while recovering from an injury. She didn't want to show it to an editor or get it published. But it did and how! It was an immediate bestseller.
Mitchell had heard about the Civil War from stories narrated to her by her family in her younger days, though she was born much later. Her well-etched characters in 'Gone With The Wind' breathed life into those stories.
Scarlett O'Hara, the Southern belle of this classic, was in many ways ahead of her time, living in the 1860s with a fiery spirit and resilience. Mitchell, through Scarlett, was symbolising the human spirit carrying on in hope in the face of adversity. Scarlett's flaws made her only more human.
Adapted from the book, the 1939 film of the same name, starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, only magnified the remarkable storytelling of the novel. Producer David O. Selznick's film adaptation won 10 Oscars.
Such is the grandeur that the scenes from the film are often spoken about again and again. For instance, the scenes of Atlanta in flames and the dying Confederate soldiers. The film was also a huge canvas on which an incredible costume drama played out.
'Gone With The Wind' is rich with iconic lines that are oft-quoted. The last line of the book with Scarlett saying: 'After all, tomorrow is another day' has no parallels.
The magnificence of the novel is clearly still relevant because very few stories are told the way Mitchell did with 'Gone With The Wind'.