Discovering Something New: An Unknown Book by Margaret Mitchell

Magazine shelf

It was believed that the author of "Gone with the Wind" wrote only one novel in her lifetime.In 1994, the literary world was shaken by the news that an early novella of hers, "The Missing Leysen"— written in 1916, when Margaret was only fifteen, and having remained in a private archive for nearly eighty years — had been discovered.

The story of the discovery is practically begging to be made into a film: Mitchell gifted the manuscript — two notebooks filled with writing — to an admirer, and it remained a secret between them for the rest of their lives. Years later, the son of an admirer, while sorting through his father’s papers, came across the novella and handed it over to the "Road to Tara" museum.

This is the first time the novella has appeared in Russian. A love triangle, a strong woman in a patriarchal world, the drama of love versus duty — all of these elements take root here, in a work written by a fifteen-year-old girl. Researchers also point to direct parallels between the characters in "Leysen" and those in the later novel — in some cases, the lines of dialogue are almost identical! As for which of the island’s inhabitants served as the prototypes for Scarlett and Rhett — well, you can discover that for yourself once you get hold of the text and start making comparisons.

In 1996, "The Missing Leisen" instantly became a "New York Times" bestseller — though, as researchers acknowledge, it can hardly be called a literary masterpiece. This is more of a prologue to a major novel: its value lies in seeing how Mitchell’s style took shape and which themes preoccupied her in her youth.

Read it in issue No. 10 of the journal "Inostrannaya Literatura" (“Foreign Literature”) for 2026 — the novella is accompanied by an introductory article.

The full text of the novella awaits you in the library’s reading room.

Did you know that Margaret Mitchell has a second book?