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BOOK: Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind
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How did Latham know this? He didn't. Public taste cannot be predicted with any accuracy. Editors take risks on every title they go after. The best they can do is hope that what interests or entertains them will interest or entertain a mass audience. Having been in the publishing business for nearly twenty-five years, Latham was an experienced gambler. He thought Mitchell had written an intriguing story and was sufficiently confident of his own taste—and that of Cole and Everett—to think the average reader would agree. Brett, also a gambler, trusted Latham's judgment. He gave the editor permission to offer the Atlanta author a contract. Latham wired Mitchell that same day with the news that the Macmillan advisers shared his enthusiasm for her book and had high hopes for its success. The firm offered her a royalty deal under which she would earn a percentage of the book's profits, with a guaranteed up-front advance payment of five hundred dollars. He directed the author to wire him her approval so he could send the specific terms immediately.
64
And so began negotiations on one of the most successful contracts in publishing history.

Mitchell was stunned to receive Latham's telegram, plus an ebullient one from Cole, adding her congratulations. She replied to Cole, “Do you really mean they like it? You wouldn't fox an old friend, would you?”
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She also wrote Latham, thanking him for the offer and his kind words, admitting that his telegram put her “in to a happiness that can best be described as a ‘state'—a ‘state' which necessitated a luminal tablet, a cold towel on the forehead and a nice, quiet nap.”
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Despite her excitement, Mitchell did not get carried away. She well knew that when it came to contracts, the devil was in the details, so she told Latham she could not wire back an immediate acceptance. She had a list of questions that had to be answered first. She wanted to know if there would be a specific delivery date for the revised manuscript and, if so, what would happen if she broke her neck or came down with “the Bubonic plague.” Would she have access to the comments the Macmillan readers had made about the manuscript? She wanted to see their suggestions to make sure she would be willing to accept them. She hoped her comments were not overly “brusque,” but she did not plan on accepting any contract, “no matter how nice,” without reviewing the terms.

If Latham was amused or offended by Mitchell's forthrightness, he did not let on. He assured her there would be nothing in the contract about a delivery date; the submission date would be entirely up to her. He suggested only that he hoped she would finish in time for it to be published in 1936.
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As for the specifics of the contract, it would be Macmillan's standard form, and he took the liberty of suggesting it contained nothing objectionable. He enclosed for her consideration the comments Everett had made on the manuscript and called her attention to his proposed title. “Another Day” worked well, Latham thought, and Macmillan was entirely content with it.*

On July 23, 1935, Latham put in a rush order for the Macmillan staff to prepare a draft contract. While Mitchell waited for the document to arrive, she wrote Cole again and expressed appreciation for her efforts in bringing the deal together. Although Mitchell did not know Cole had been the first one to read the manuscript and sing its praises, she suspected her friend had been working behind the scenes on its behalf. “I know perfectly well that Mr. Latham wouldn't have taken such a kindly attitude if it hadn't been for your nice press agenting,” she wrote. “Even before he laid eyes on me, you had gotten in such good work that I had Hell to pay trying to live up to your advance notices. Any way, I do thank you from the bottom of what passes as my heart.”
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She also wrote to Latham expressing her pleasure over Everett's comments: “I certainly did not expect so swell a report.”
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She went through the professor's suggestions one by one and agreed to take them into consideration. As for two characters who seemed to spring out of nowhere in the text—Pansy's daughter Ella and a convict named Archie—Mitchell thought she had included chapters introducing them but admitted the envelopes may have been omitted in her haste to get Latham the manuscript that harried afternoon in April. She found drafts of the relevant parts amidst the envelopes still cluttering her apartment and sent them along. Lest he have any worries that she was offended by Everett's frank assessment, she encouraged Latham to always be honest with her. “I am not a sensitive plant and can take criticism,” she assured him. Her skin had been toughened by her husband's review of her work: “I fear that nothing you or your advisers could say would be quite as hard boiled as what he has already said to me. So please speak your mind.” As for the proposed title, she preferred “Tomorrow Is Another Day” or, perhaps, “Tote the Weary Load.” Still, she had concerns about those. The first, she thought, had just been used for another novel, and the second might be “too colloquial.” Could she have a “little leeway” before making a final decision?

As Latham promised, the contract contained nothing controversial. Macmillan's offer was typical of that era—10 percent royalties on the first ten thousand copies of the book sold and 15 percent for any copies sold beyond that. In the event Macmillan ever issued a low-end edition of the book, Mitchell's share of the profits would be adjusted downward. The five-hundred-dollar advance would be paid in two parts—half on signing the contract, the remainder upon delivery of the final manuscript. The document also detailed what would happen if, after Mitchell delivered the manuscript, she wanted to make corrections; if she made changes too far down the production line, she would have to pay for the alterations. Finally, Macmillan wanted the author to agree to submit her next novel to the company for its consideration.

Under Macmillan's offer, the firm would obtain the right to publish Mitchell's book in the United States, as well as in all markets worldwide. At that time, foreign rights to American novels were not seen as having significant value. Few overseas readers were interested in what writers in the United States had to say. And publishers were wary of the high cost of translating American books into foreign languages. But American publishers often acquired those rights as a matter of course on the off chance a book proved to have international appeal. Macmillan had no interest though in the dramatic and motion picture rights to Mitchell's story. Today, those subsidiary rights are integral to many book contracts, but publishers in the 1930s did not have the time or expertise to deal with movie and theatrical producers. Macmillan published books; Mitchell could do what she liked with any nonprint formats of her story.

Overall, Mitchell was pleased with the contract, so much so that she saw no need to bring in an outside adviser to assess the document. She appears to have never considered hiring a literary rights lawyer to haggle over the proposed terms or bringing in a literary agent to shop the book to other publishers with the hope of generating a bidding war. Mitchell trusted Latham and wanted the company where her friend Cole worked to have the book. She was content to review the contract with the counsel of her family. She and Marsh had experience in newspaper publishing, and her father and brother were lawyers, albeit specialists in real estate law. Mitchell felt confident the Mitchell-Marsh clan was savvy enough to review a basic contract.

On August 1, she wrote to Latham that she was “quite willing to sign up with Macmillan,” subject to a few points of clarification. At the risk of being “pickayunish,” she thought it important that she speak her mind before signing on the dotted line. One of her primary concerns was that she wanted input on the dust jacket design. She claimed to “have seen many books about the South which had illustrations on the jacket which were of such un-Southern appearance as to arouse mirth and indignation” and would feel better if she could see the final design before it was “closed up.”
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She also wanted to clarify her serial rights—publication of her story in installments in newspapers and magazines—and establish what would happen if Macmillan should go bankrupt. She concluded by asking if the company would keep the deal quiet until the manuscript was finished. If word got out, she would be inundated with friends wanting to know details, and she preferred to work without interruption for the time being. “I only hope you do not lose money on me!” she added. Mitchell returned the contract—unsigned—so Latham could look over the suggested changes.

The editor again accepted Mitchell's queries with aplomb, going so far as expressing pleasure at having received her “long letter.” He did not want to modify the contract but offered assurances on the matters that concerned her. She could have approval rights on the book's cover, dust jacket, and even typeface. Proceeds from a serialization would be divided equally between the publisher and the author. As for the possibility of Macmillan going bankrupt, he assured her that was not likely to happen and, if it did, appropriate arrangements could be made at that time. He agreed Macmillan would not broadcast news of the book outside the company but cautioned her that he would begin talking it up to his own staff so that when release day came the salesmen would be ready to believe in her book and advance its interests.
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Tossing on the charm, he added that he was leaving for a month's vacation and wanted to bring this matter to a happy conclusion before he left. He would not be able to enjoy his holiday otherwise, he said. Latham returned the contract to Mitchell by special delivery airmail and told her, if these assurances were not adequate, he would adjust anything that caused her concern.

Less gracious was Cole, who could not believe her friend's nerve. She, too, was getting ready for vacation and did not like the prospect of Mitchell holding things up. In Cole's mind, the author should have signed and returned the contract without hesitation. Thousands of Macmillan authors had; Cole herself had signed one for a young adult book she coauthored with her husband. Where did Mitchell get off splitting hairs? She gave her friend some hard advice in a letter airmailed to Atlanta on August 5. She assured Mitchell that Macmillan was trustworthy as well as solvent— “Gibraltar itself is no more firmly founded”—and let her friend know that Macmillan was “exercised” about the list of questions. Straddling her double role of ally and editor, Cole closed, “For heaven's sake, don't think I am trying to influence you. I am only being the most ordinary of friends.”
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Mitchell signed the contract the following day without further ado and telegraphed her approval to New York. When returning the executed document, she apologized for having caused any trouble. She characterized Latham as being “mighty patient and long suffering” in his dealings with her: “After reading Lois' letter, I got the idea that you all might think that I suspected you and your company of bad faith or double dealing. That upset me for
that
idea hadn't occurred to me and I hasten to beg you to put such an idea out of your minds.”
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Was she seriously worried she had offended Macmillan by asking questions about the contract? This seems unlikely. No damsel in distress, Mitchell knew she was within her rights to raise concerns before signing the document. A more likely explanation is that she wanted to avoid causing problems for Cole and getting off on the wrong foot with Latham. Regardless of her motivation though, she managed to retain the upper hand with her amiable regrets to Latham for being a bother. He rushed to apologize for the way things had been handled, claiming that her questions were legitimate and that he had not felt the least bit of impatience with her questions.
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Mitchell had signed Macmillan's contract but now had Latham eating out of the palm of her hand. Margaret Mitchell may not have been a member of the Junior League, but she knew a thing or two about Southern charm.

Footnotes

* Over the years, the exact circumstances of Mitchell and Latham's first meeting in April 1935 have become muddled. In an account the editor wrote in 1936, he made it sound as if he met Mitchell and obtained the manuscript on the same day. This comports with Mitchell's version of the story as well as press reports that Latham was in town for a single day—Thursday, April 11. In an article he wrote in 1939, however, Latham claimed he approached Mitchell about her novel on three occasions over a two-day period; he repeated this general version in his 1965 autobiography,
My Life in Publishing
.

* It is not known in which hotel Latham stayed while in Atlanta. Mitchell biographer Anne Edwards says it was the Georgian Terrace but offers no source. Lois Cole recalled it was the Biltmore, while Margaret Baugh, a Macmillan secretary in the Atlanta office, insisted it was the Ansley.

* Latham appears never to have informed Mitchell that Cole had also read the manuscript, nor do the records suggest he sent her Cole's comments.

BOOK: Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind
2.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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