20 publishers rejected William Golding’s Lord of the Flies before the book found a home at Faber & Faber and was published in 1954. Quote from one publisher’s rejection letter:
…an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.
Initially, Lord of the Flies was rejected from the reading pile at Faber & Faber, but was championed by editor Charles Monteith. When it was first published, it didn’t sell well. From Monteith:
The book began not only to be talked about but to sell and before
long we had to order a reprint. In the United States, where we
had great difficulty in placing it, it made little impression at first,
but after a year or two, a paperback edition began to spread like
forest fire through university campuses.
One of the changes that Monteith made, by the way, was to change the title of the book, which was originally Strangers From Within.
William Golding went on to win a Booker Prize in 1980 and the Nobel Prize For Literature in 1983.
Sources:
Wikipedia entry on William Golding
Examiner.com’s piece on famous authors who were rejected
Faber Firsts
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve really been enjoying your posts on famous writers and rejections (and their writing habits too)! Thanks so much for the inspiration.
All I have to say is WOW.
I hope I have a similar story some day. We are truly blessed to have such a repertoire of awesome writers to stand on.
Thanks, Denise!
Reege: I agree. So are you saving your rejection letters? I am!
Of course…
though it’s a little different when I’m rejected electronically instead of on paper. Sometimes I don’t get around to printing them off.