{"id":98589,"date":"2016-06-02T17:54:26","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T17:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/06\/02\/famous-authors-their-writings-and-their-rejection\/"},"modified":"2016-06-02T17:54:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T17:54:26","slug":"famous-authors-their-writings-and-their-rejection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/06\/02\/famous-authors-their-writings-and-their-rejection\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous authors, their writings and their rejection letters."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/ramoorebooks.tumblr.com\/post\/24934387177\" target=\"_blank\">ramoorebooks<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<b>Sylvia Plath<\/b>:\u00a0<i>There certainly isn\u2019t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Rudyard Kipling<\/b>:\u00a0<i>I\u2019m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don\u2019t know how to use the English language.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Emily Dickinson<\/b>:\u00a0<i>[Your poems] are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Ernest Hemingway<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>The Torrents of Spring<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Dr. Seuss<\/b>:\u00a0<i>Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b><i>The Diary of Anne Frank<\/i><\/b>:\u00a0<i>The girl doesn\u2019t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the \u2018curiosity\u2019 level.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Richard Bach<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>Jonathan Livingston Seagull<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>will never make it as a paperback<\/i>. (Over 7.25 million copies sold)<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>H.G. Wells<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>The War of the Worlds<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would \u201ctake\u201d\u2026I think the verdict would be \u2018Oh don\u2019t read that horrid book\u2019.<\/i>\u00a0And (on\u00a0<i>The Time Machine<\/i>):\u00a0<i>It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Edgar Allan Poe<\/b>:\u00a0<i>Readers in this country have a decided and strong preference for works in which a single and connected story occupies the entire volume.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Herman Melville<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>Moby Dick<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>We regret to say that our united opinion is entirely against the book as we do not think it would be at all suitable for the Juvenile Market in [England]. It is very long, rather old-fashioned\u2026<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Jack London<\/b>:\u00a0<i>[Your book is] forbidding and depressing.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>William Faulkner<\/b>:\u00a0<i>If the book had a plot and structure, we might suggest shortening and revisions, but it is so diffuse that I don\u2019t think this would be of any use. My chief objection is that you don\u2019t have any story to tell.<\/i>\u00a0And two years later:\u00a0<i>Good God, I can\u2019t publish this!<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Stephen King<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>Carrie<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Joseph Heller<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>Catch\u201322<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>I haven\u2019t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say\u2026 Apparently the author intends it to be funny \u2013 possibly even satire \u2013 but it is really not funny on any intellectual level \u2026 From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>George Orwell<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>Animal Farm<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Oscar Wilde<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>Lady Windermere\u2019s Fan<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Vladimir Nabokov<\/b>\u00a0(on\u00a0<b><i>Lolita<\/i><\/b>):\u00a0<i>\u2026 overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian \u2026 the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream \u2026 I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.<\/i>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<b><i>The Tale of Peter Rabbit<\/i><\/b>\u00a0was turned down so many times,\u00a0<b>Beatrix Potter<\/b>\u00a0initially self-published it.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b><i>Lust for Life<\/i><\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0<b>Irving Stone<\/b>\u00a0was rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>John Grisham<\/b>\u2019s first novel was rejected 25 times.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Jack Canfield<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>Mark Victor Hansen<\/b>\u00a0(<b><i>Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/i><\/b>) received 134 rejections.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Robert Pirsig<\/b>\u00a0(<b><i>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance<\/i><\/b>) received 121 rejections.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Gertrude Stein<\/b>\u00a0spent 22 years submitting before getting a single poem accepted.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Judy Blume<\/b>, beloved by children everywhere, received rejections for two straight years.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b><i>A Wrinkle in Time\u00a0<\/i><\/b>by\u00a0<b>Madeline L\u2019Engle<\/b>\u00a0received 26 rejections.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Frank Herbert<\/b>\u2019s\u00a0<b><i>Dune\u00a0<\/i><\/b>was rejected 20 times.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b><i>Carrie<\/i>\u00a0<\/b>by\u00a0<b>Stephen King<\/b>\u00a0received\u00a030 rejections.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>The\u00a0<i>Diary of Anne Frank<\/i><\/b>\u00a0received 16 rejections.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b><i>Harry Potter and The Philosopher\u2019s Stone<\/i><\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0<b>J.K. Rolling<\/b>\u00a0was rejected 12 times.<\/li>\n<li>\n<b>Dr. Seuss<\/b>\u00a0received 27 rejection letters<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ramoorebooks: Sylvia Plath:\u00a0There certainly isn\u2019t enough genuine talent for us to take notice. Rudyard Kipling:\u00a0I\u2019m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don\u2019t know how to use the English language. Emily Dickinson:\u00a0[Your poems] are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities. Ernest Hemingway\u00a0(on\u00a0The Torrents of Spring):\u00a0It would &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/06\/02\/famous-authors-their-writings-and-their-rejection\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Famous authors, their writings and their rejection letters.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[547,452,353,4,45,12356],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}