Book Bearings
Gone With the Wind
- 934 pages · about 16 hours
- First published 1936
- 362 editions
- Free to read
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1 About this book
Scarlett O'Hara, spoiled and strong-willed, is the eldest daughter of a prosperous planter in Clayton County, Georgia, and when the story opens in 1861 her mind is on Ashley Wilkes, who is about to marry his cousin Melanie. Then the Civil War begins. Scarlett lives through the war, the fall of Atlanta and the upheaval of Reconstruction, and uses every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty. Through it all she spars with Rhett Butler, a cynical adventurer who understands her better than she likes. Margaret Mitchell's novel was published in 1936.
- Survival
- Bildungsromans
- Historical fiction
- United States
- United states, history
- Romance
- Economics
- Economic conditions
2 What to expect
A very long historical novel of the American Civil War and its aftermath in Georgia, centered on a selfish, indomitable heroine and her long duel with Rhett Butler. It is a survival story and a love story with a huge cast, vividly told and fast for its length. It also presents slavery as benign and the Ku Klux Klan as honorable, with racist caricatures and language, and it tells the story wholly from the slaveholders' side.
Good for readers who want: a sweeping historical saga, a headstrong heroine, and an epic read to get lost in.
3 Read it free, right here
A free scan from the Internet Archive opens right here on the page, with no sign-up.
Read it on the Internet Archive4 About Margaret Mitchell
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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