From Animal Farm to Catch 22 the most regrettable rejections in the history of publishing
almost 5 years in The guardian
Faber is being urged to make amends for turning down George Orwell’s novella in 1944. But it is far from the only publisher to miss out on a future bestseller
Ah, the heyday of publishing – big desks, lots of cash, martini-soused three-hour lunches, trying to appease your government. That was the world in which TS Eliot, then a director of Faber and Faber, was living in 1944, when he rejected George Orwell’s Animal Farm for its criticism of Stalin, who was then Britain’s wartime ally. “We have no conviction,” Eliot wrote to Orwell, “that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time.” He did, however, say he was “very sorry” to pass on it, as it would likely mean Orwell wouldn’t send them his next book – which would end up being a little novel called Nineteen Eighty-Four.
His decision has haunted the publisher ever since. Toby Faber, the former managing director and the grandson of the publisher’s founder, is now urging Faber to rectify Eliot’s bad call by printing its own edition of the book when it comes out of copyright in 2020, alongside Eliot’s rejection. Continue reading...
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