The dashing renegade who didn't give a damn is back in a vivid, sweeping novel fully authorized by the estate of Margaret Mitchell. Twelve years in the making, here is the exciting life and times of Rhett Butler. Return to a time of hoop skirts and frock coats, national tensions and personal passions. Meet a young Rhett and, through his eyes, those who shape his larger than life personality: his father, Langston, a brutal slave owner who tries to turn his headstrong son into a gentleman; his beloved sister Rosemary; Tunis Rhett's est friend and a former slave; Belle Watling, the woman he cares for before, at Twelve Oaks Plantation on the eve of the Civil War, he meets Scarlett O'Hara. She's here, too, a rebellious belle powerfully drawn to Rhett, for whom her feelings are stronger than she wants to admit.