I've recently read a book, which has made a very deep impression on me. It is named "Gone with the Wind" The author of the book is Margaret Mitchell. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in a family of the president of the Atlanta Historical Society.
All the family was interested in American history and she grew up in an atmosphere of stones about the Civil War.
After graduating from the college Margaret Mitchell worked for a time for the Atlanta Journal. In 1925 she got married. In the following ten years she put on paper all the stories she had heard about the Civil War.
The result was Gone with the Wind. It was first published in 1936 and became the talking point of all America.
In 1939 the book was made into a highly successful film. Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable played the leading roles. Vivien Leigh won the Oscar. Everyone loved her high-spirited and beautiful heroine, Scarlett O'Hara.
The story is set around the time of the American Civil War (1861-1865), when the Southern states went to war with the North to defend their way of life.
It was a way of life in which rich gentry lived in large houses and owned huge areas of land, cultivated by black slaves. Scarlett O'Hara was born in one of those rich houses.
But "Gone with the Wind" is also about a love triangle. While Scarlett loves the quiet, gentlemanly Ashley Wilkes, the wild and decidedly ungentlemanly Rhett Butler is in love with her.
Not so long ago, in 1991, a publishing company asked Alexandra Ripley, a historical novelist, to write the continuation of the story. Her novel "Scarlett" was not in the same class as the original. Critics have been writing very bad reviews of "Scarlett" but the book is popular with the public.