John Wiley Jr., is an expert on Gone With the Wind and the life of its author, Margaret Mitchell. Over the past 40 years, he has assembled a collection of more than 10,000 items of Gone With the Wind and Mitchell memorabilia – including every American edition of the novel and more than 1,000 foreign editions.[1] His collection is featured in the Complete Gone With the Wind Sourcebook.[2]
Wiley has published numerous articles on Mitchell and Gone With the Wind and has been interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Times. In 1997, he served as artistic adviser for the U.S. Postal Service's 32-cent Gone With the Wind postage stamp in its 1930s Celebrate the Century series[3] He also is featured in the PBS American Masters documentary Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel.
In February 2011, Wiley co-authored the book Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood with Ellen F. Brown. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most popular and controversial novels in history of publishing.[4]
For more than 30 years, he has published a quarterly newsletter, now called The Scarlett Letter, for Gone with the Wind fans and collectors.