Read Online Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Ellen F. Brown, Jr. John Wiley - Free Book Online
Book: Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Ellen F. Brown, Jr. John Wiley
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Authors: Ellen F. Brown, Jr. John Wiley
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image. This bought Mitchell some extra time. Cole returned what she had of the manuscriptâexcept for the first chapter, which was used to create a book dummy for the sales conferenceâand told her to take another week. She assured the author that Macmillan was doing its best by her and urged her to send the finished book as quickly as she could. 41
The extra time must have been appreciated, but Mitchell was not ready to dance a jig just yet. Her back pain had worsened to the point where her doctor feared surgery might be necessary; he ordered her to bed, where she worked propped up on pillows. 42 With Mitchell unable to get about, Marsh assumed a more active role in wrapping up the manuscript. He took additional vacation time and hired his secretary, Rhoda Williams, as well as Georgia Power employees Grace Threlkeld and Connie Pearson, to help with the typing after hours. 43 Also assisting was Margaret Baugh, a secretary at Macmillanâs Atlanta office whom the Marshes had met through Cole.
Even with this support, the couple did not manage to complete the manuscript in that extra week. Marsh would later say that the harder he worked, the less progress he seemed to make. âAnd I wasnât writing a book. I was just reading it. . . . I just couldnât seem to get through with the job. Iâd work myself blue in the face and then go out and take another look at the stack [of pages] and I hadnât even made a dent in it.â He began to think he was slipping. âI just couldnât put the stuff on the ball like I used to could.â 44 The pressure drove Mitchell into a complete state of misery. She used to think that âa lady author was a lady of leisure,â but that romantic notion had evaporated. 45 She reached the point where she was scared to pick up the telephone or open the mail for fear it might be Macmillan urging her along or a friend asking for details on her progress. Matters got so out of hand, the pair felt compelled to sequester themselves, refusing visits from friends and family. Allan Taylor, Coleâs husband, passed through Atlanta on a business trip during this time, and they declined to see even him. 46
As legitimate as Mitchellâs excuses were, her failure to get the manuscript to New York by the conference posed serious problems for Latham. He was worried not only about the sales staff âs interest in the novel but also because Hugh Eayrs, president of the Macmillan Company of Canada, would be present at the meeting. Macmillan Canada was an independent affiliate that Latham hoped would issue its own edition of Mitchellâs book. Although the retail book market in Canada at that time was small, Macmillan New York had a vested interest in having a Canadian edition published. The American company owned stock in the Toronto firm and would benefit financially if the book sold well there. But, more importantly, due to a quirk of international copyright law, having a Canadian edition issued simultaneously with the American one would offer Macmillan automatic copyright protection on Mitchellâs book throughout most of Europe and in other parts of the world without the firm having to file for protection in each individual country.
Unfortunately for American authors and publishers in that era, the United States was not a member of the Berne Convention, an international treaty under which Canada, most of Europe, and some South American countries automatically granted each otherâs citizens copyright protection. This meant that, if Macmillan wanted to protect its publications overseas, it had to register the copyrights country by country. Without such registrations, publishers in Berne nations were free to sell their own editions of Macmillan books without asking permission or paying royalties. The only way around that quagmire was a loophole in the Berne treaty that allowed authors from nonconvention countries to obtain copyright protection in signatory
The extra time must have been appreciated, but Mitchell was not ready to dance a jig just yet. Her back pain had worsened to the point where her doctor feared surgery might be necessary; he ordered her to bed, where she worked propped up on pillows. 42 With Mitchell unable to get about, Marsh assumed a more active role in wrapping up the manuscript. He took additional vacation time and hired his secretary, Rhoda Williams, as well as Georgia Power employees Grace Threlkeld and Connie Pearson, to help with the typing after hours. 43 Also assisting was Margaret Baugh, a secretary at Macmillanâs Atlanta office whom the Marshes had met through Cole.
Even with this support, the couple did not manage to complete the manuscript in that extra week. Marsh would later say that the harder he worked, the less progress he seemed to make. âAnd I wasnât writing a book. I was just reading it. . . . I just couldnât seem to get through with the job. Iâd work myself blue in the face and then go out and take another look at the stack [of pages] and I hadnât even made a dent in it.â He began to think he was slipping. âI just couldnât put the stuff on the ball like I used to could.â 44 The pressure drove Mitchell into a complete state of misery. She used to think that âa lady author was a lady of leisure,â but that romantic notion had evaporated. 45 She reached the point where she was scared to pick up the telephone or open the mail for fear it might be Macmillan urging her along or a friend asking for details on her progress. Matters got so out of hand, the pair felt compelled to sequester themselves, refusing visits from friends and family. Allan Taylor, Coleâs husband, passed through Atlanta on a business trip during this time, and they declined to see even him. 46
As legitimate as Mitchellâs excuses were, her failure to get the manuscript to New York by the conference posed serious problems for Latham. He was worried not only about the sales staff âs interest in the novel but also because Hugh Eayrs, president of the Macmillan Company of Canada, would be present at the meeting. Macmillan Canada was an independent affiliate that Latham hoped would issue its own edition of Mitchellâs book. Although the retail book market in Canada at that time was small, Macmillan New York had a vested interest in having a Canadian edition published. The American company owned stock in the Toronto firm and would benefit financially if the book sold well there. But, more importantly, due to a quirk of international copyright law, having a Canadian edition issued simultaneously with the American one would offer Macmillan automatic copyright protection on Mitchellâs book throughout most of Europe and in other parts of the world without the firm having to file for protection in each individual country.
Unfortunately for American authors and publishers in that era, the United States was not a member of the Berne Convention, an international treaty under which Canada, most of Europe, and some South American countries automatically granted each otherâs citizens copyright protection. This meant that, if Macmillan wanted to protect its publications overseas, it had to register the copyrights country by country. Without such registrations, publishers in Berne nations were free to sell their own editions of Macmillan books without asking permission or paying royalties. The only way around that quagmire was a loophole in the Berne treaty that allowed authors from nonconvention countries to obtain copyright protection in signatory
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