Rejections of Famous Writers

Even great writers get rejected in the beginning. These are examples of famous writers who have been unceremoniously criticised by some people - who maybe regretted it later.

Crash by J  G Ballard

‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'

The Deer Park by Norman Mailer

'This will set publishing back 25 years.'

Emily Dickinson's poems

only 7 published during her lifetime

"(Your poems) are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities." 

The Diary of Anne Frank

‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’

Lust for Life by Irving Stone
(which was rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies)

‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’

Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller

‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … 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.’

The Spy who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

‘You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.’

Animal Farm by George Orwell

‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA’

Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde

‘My dear sir,

I have read your manuscript.  Oh, my dear sir.’

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

‘... overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy.  It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.”

My favourite is this rejection by a Chinese Economic Journal

"We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity."