gone with the wind

(1936) A phenomenally popular novel by the American author Margaret Mitchell. Set in Georgia in the period of the Civil War, it tells of the three marriages of the central character, Scarlett O'Hara, and of the devastation caused by the war.

Note: The film version of Gone With the Wind, which premiered in 1939, is one of the most successful films ever made.

gone with the wind

Disappeared, gone forever, as in With these unforeseen expenses, our profits are gone with the wind. This phrase became famous as the title of Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, which alludes to the Civil War's causing the disappearance of a Southern way of life. It mainly serves as an intensifier of gone.