I think my brief post on Famous Rejections got more hits than anything I’ve written since I followed a Sasquatch on a CBC radio interview about my own journey to publication. So here are some more:
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“His frenetic and scrambled prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so.”
Rudyard Kipling
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you don’t know how to use the English language” (Perhaps a reference to Jabberwocky 
?)
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
“…an irresponsible holiday story.”
Joseph Heller, Catch – 22
“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.”
John le Carré, The Spy who Came in from the Cold
“You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.”
And publisher Knopf turned down a number of famous authors: listen to NPR describe what archivists are discovering as they look through the slushpile.
Now, feeling better?
