Upon its publication in 1936, Gone with the Wind became an immediate best-seller. Before it even hit the bookstores, it was named as a Book of the Month main selection. In six months it sold a record-breaking one million copies and was well on its way to becoming the best-selling novel in history. To date it has outsold every other book except the Bible. The fervor it created extended to Mitchell herself, who quickly found that she could not leave home without fans begging her for autographs. Newspaper publishers and magazine editors offered her amazing sums for anything she would care to write for them. Hundreds of fan letters arrived at her home each day and her phone rang off the hook. Gone with the Wind was a national phenomenon.

Early reviews of the work spanned a wide range of opinions, but most were favorable. Many critics...