The estate of author Margaret Mitchell filed a petition May 31 to restore an injunction against publisher Houghton Mifflin’s release of a parody of the 1936 novel Gone with the Wind. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta had overturned a ban on the publication of Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone imposed in April by a district court judge, who ruled that the author had engaged in the “unabated piracy” of Mitchell’s characters.
The petition also requests a rehearing of the case by the full appellate court of 12 judges. Houghton Mifflin Executive Vice President Wendy Strothman said “we are not surprised” by the request, the Reuters agency reported June 1, and “see no reason to change our plans” to put the book on sale June 28.
Mitchell estate attorney Richard Kurnit told reporters, “Should we be successful [with restoring the ban], the injunction from the district court would be in effect until the entire court reviewed the case.”
Posted June 4, 2001.