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Monday, July 13, 2009

In Rejection History Today

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog (where ideas matter), T.S. Eliot rejected George Orwell's Animal Farm 65 years ago today.  Eliot, moonlighting as an editor at Faber & Faber,  told the political-satire guru that his manuscript was not up to the publishing house's literary standards, hastening to say, however, that “we have no conviction . . . that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time.” Isn't it so like a rejecting editor to have no conviction?  Makes me feel better.
p.s.  Let us reflect on a famous quotation by Thomas Stearns himself: "Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting, but I wouldn't call Orwell a sci fi guru. More like a political satirist.

The Rejection Queen said...

Hey another moron got on the best sellers list.

Anonymous said...

"Farm"

Anonymous said...

to writer, rejected, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude with my snarky Animal House/Farm comment. I thought the typo made for a good pun.

Writer, Rejected said...

I actually rejected it by mistake. I thought it was funny. As you can see I was flying at full speed yesterday with tons of typos and stupidity. Not my usual, but not as uncommon as you'd think. Alas!