小說以亞特蘭大以及的一個種植園為故事場景，描繪了內戰前後美國南方人的生活。作品刻畫了那個時代的許多南方人的形像，占中心位置的斯佳麗、瑞德、艾希禮、梅蘭妮等人是其中的典型代表。他們的儀、言行舉止、精神觀念、政治態度，通過對斯佳麗與白瑞德的愛情糾纏為主線地再現了林的南北戰爭，美國南方地區的社會生活。

目錄

Part One

Chapter I .......................................001

Chapter II......................................023

Chapter III.................................045

Chapter IV..................................071

Chapter V....................................086

Chapter VI..................................109

Chapter VII .................................151

Part Two

Chapter VIII...............................163

Chapter IX..................................186

Chapter X....................................229

Chapter XI..................................243

Chapter XII.................................252

Chapter XIII...............................274

Chapter XIV................................293

Chapter XV................................ 307

Chapter XVI ...............................323

Part Three

Chapter XVII..............................335

Chapter XVIII ............................362

Chapter XIX ..............................380

Chapter XX ................................398

Chapter XXI...............................408

Chapter XXII .............................426

Chapter XXIII............................433

Chapter XXIV............................456

Chapter XXV.............................490

Chapter XXVI............................507

Chapter XXVII............................533

Chapter XXVIII.........................547

Chapter XXIX.............................567

Chapter XXX ..............................582

Part Four

Chapter XXXI............................603

Chapter XXXII ..........................623

Chapter XXXIII.........................641

Chapter XXXIV..........................658

Chapter XXXV...........................683

Chapter XXXVI..........................712

Chapter XXXVII.......................749

Chapter XXXVIII......................769

Chapter XXXIX.........................801

Chapter XL.................................820

Chapte XLI.................................842

Chapter XLII...............................871

Chapter XLIII............................890

Chapter XLIV............................907

Chapter XLV...............................922

Chapter XLVI.............................947

Chapter XLVII...........................958

Part Five

Chapter XLVIII.........................989

Chapter XLIX...........................1003

Chapter L...................................1026

Chapter LI.................................1039

Chapter LII...............................1046

Chapter LIII.............................1066

Chapter LIV..............................1086

CARLETT O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin—that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father’s plantation, that bright April afternoon of 186he made a pretty picture. Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.

瑪格麗特·米切爾（Margaret Mitchell，1900年11月8日—1949年8月16日），美國現代女作家。1900年11月8日出生於佐治亞州的亞特蘭大。曾獲文學博士學位，擔任過《亞特蘭大新聞報》的記者。1937年，她因本書獲得普利策獎。1939年獲紐約南方協會金質獎章。