Publishing history is littered with tales of authors who suffered rejection after rejection—often for years—before they finally found a publisher prepared to take them on. Their stories are invoked as encouragement to every struggling writer: persist, and eventually you will succeed. Equally, of course, they can be read as cautionary tales for publishers: “look how foolish you were,” they seem to say. “Learn from your mistakes.”

I’m not sure I agree with the first half of that admonition. The main job of a publisher is to exercise taste in choosing what to publish. No one can be expected to get it right every time, and it may well be better to err on the side of selectivity than to publish too widely. The idea that we should learn from our mistakes, however—or at least acknowledge them—is far more compelling. At the very least, it serves to temper the pride that might otherwise take over. There are many parts of Faber’s history that make me proud, but there is no harm in remembering how that history includes the occasional howler.

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T.S. Eliot rejects WH Auden

T. S. Eliot to W. H. Auden, 9 September 1927:

I must apologise for having kept your poems such a long time, but I am very slow to make up my mind. I do not feel that any of the enclosed is quite right, but I should be very interested to follow your work. I am afraid that I am much too busy to give you any detailed criticism that would do the poems justice, and I suggest that whenever you happen to be in London you might let me know and I should be very glad if you cared to come to see me.

Auden was not disheartened by this response, writing to Christopher Isherwood, “On the whole coming from Eliot’s reserve I think it is really quite complimentary.” More to the point, the rejection was only temporary. Faber’s publication in 1930 of Auden’s simply-named Poems was one of the first indications that it was seeking to be the standard-bearer for new poetry. By the time Auden died in 1973, the firm would have published something like 20 collections bearing his name.

A slush pile reader on Lord of the Flies: “Rubbish & dull. Pointless. Reject.”

T. S. Eliot rejects James Joyce

T. S. Eliot to James Joyce, 20 April 1932:

We have gone into the question of the publication of Ulysses in England as thoroughly as possible, and have taken every opinion available on the prospects. [. . .]

We are advised that we should certainly be liable to prosecution and heavy penalties, with the possibility of the chairman’s having to spend six months in gaol, which in itself would be disastrous for the business. The opinion further is that such prosecution would certainly take place.

It is hard to believe now the extent to which publishers were circumscribed by censorship right up until the 1960s. Paralyzed by the fear of prosecution for obscenity, the firm had to watch in 1934 as The Bodley Head became the British publisher of Ulysses. Faber was already, however, publishing fragments from what was then called “Work in Progress,” and which would be published in full as Finnegans Wake in 1939.

T. S. Eliot rejects George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London

T. S. Eliot to Eric Blair (George Orwell), 19 February 1932:

I am sorry to have kept your manuscript. We did find it of very great interest, but I regret to say that it does not appear to me possible as a publishing venture. It is decidedly too short, and particularly for a book of such length it seems to me too loosely constructed, as the French and English episodes fall into two parts with very little to connect them.

T. S. Eliot turned down Down and Out in Paris and London (Victor Gollancz eventually published it in 1933) and thereby lost the chance to take on George Orwell at the beginning of his career. He was to get another opportunity.

T. S. Eliot rejects George Orwell, again: Animal Farm

T. S. Eliot to George Orwell Esq., 13 July 1944:

I know that you wanted a quick decision about Animal Farm; but the minimum is two directors’ opinions, and that can’t be done under a week. But for the importance of speed, I should have asked the Chairman to look at it as well. But the other director is in agreement with me on the main points. We agree that it is a distinguished piece of writing; that the fable is very skilfully handled, and that the narrative keeps one’s interest on its own plane – and that is something very few authors have achieved since Gulliver.

On the other hand, we have no conviction (and I am sure none of the other directors would have) that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time.[. . .]

I am very sorry, because whoever publishes this, will naturally have the opportunity of publishing your future work: and I have a regard for your work, because it is good writing of fundamental integrity.

It is that last paragraph that particularly strikes me: in turning down Animal Farm—essentially because it was being rude about our Soviet allies—Eliot was also turning down the unwritten 1984.

Faber ALMOST rejects William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

William Golding to Faber & Faber, 14 September 1953:

I send you the typescript of my novel Strangers From Within which might be defined as an allegorical interpretation of a stock situation. I hope you will feel able to publish it.

The Faber slush pile reader’s comments are handwritten across the top left-hand corner of the cover letter:

“Time the Future. Absurd & uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atom bomb on the colonies. A group of children who land in jungle country near New Guinea. Rubbish & dull. Pointless. Reject.”

Editor Charles Monteith—who had only been with the publisher for a few weeks—carried on beyond that “rubbish and dull” first chapter, to find something much more interesting. Faber renamed the novel Lord of the Flies and published it in 1953. The Faber edition alone still sells over 100,000 copies every year.

Faber rejects Paddington Bear

Book report on A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, 28 August 1957:

I think the author has missed his mark in this story of a bear adopted by a middle class family called Brown. Unless I mistake him he means it to be funny but the jokes are all on the bear; the Browns treat him very much as I imagine they would treat a ‘foreigner’ and as one’s sympathies and affections are all with the bear it is difficult to laugh with the author. Moreover the Brown family are perfect fools, they leave him, who knows nothing of modern conveniences, alone to bath and nearly to drown; they twice lose him, once on the Underground and once in a large store simply through inattention – the parents Brown that is. No – frankly the best of the book lies in its title.

It is hindsight, of course, that makes the certainty of that final judgement so amusing. As a Faber, I can only regret it, but as a reader, I am glad that another publisher got it right.

Despite these mistakes, Faber’s editors have made enough good decisions throughout its history for the firm to develop a formidable reputation as a literary publisher. To date, its writers have won thirteen Nobel Prizes, seven Booker Prizes and eleven Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. I am, of course, proud of that record, and proud that Faber has achieved it while preserving its independence for 90 years.

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Adapted from Faber & Faber: The Untold Story by Toby Faber. Published by permission of Faber & Faber. Copyright © 2019 by Faber Productions Ltd.