Repeatedly Rejected Best Sellers, 5-9
Our list of repeatedly rejected best sellers continues with a book that redefined business management.
5. The Peter Principle by Laurence Peter
In 1969, after 16 reported rejections, Canadian professor Laurence Peter's business book about bad management finally got a green light from Bantam Books. Within one year, the hardcover version of The Peter Principle was in its 15th reprint. Peter went on to write The Peter Prescription, The Peter Plan, and the unintentionally amusing The Peter Pyramid: Will We Ever Get to the Point? None of Peter's follow-up books did as well as the original, but no one can deny the book's impact on business publishing.
6. Dubliners by James Joyce
It took 22 rejections before a publisher took a chance on a young James Joyce in 1914. They didn't take too big of a chance -- only 1,250 copies of Dubliners were initially published. Joyce's popularity didn't hit right away; out of the 379 copies that sold in the first year, Joyce himself purchased 120 of them. Joyce would go on to be regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Dubliners, a collection of short stories, is among the most popular of Joyce's titles, which include A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegans Wake, and Ulysses.
7. Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore
You know you've done well when you've got a cookie named after your novel's heroine. Not only does Nabisco's Lorna Doone cookie remind us of Blackmore's classic, but there are nearly a dozen big-screen or TV versions of the story as well. This Devonshire-set romance of rivalry and revenge was turned down 18 times before being published in 1889. Today, Blackmore is considered one of the greatest British authors of the 19th century, though his popularity has waned over time.
8. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Pirsig's manuscript attempts to understand the true meaning of life. By the time it was finally published in 1974, the book had been turned down 121 times. The editor who finally published Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance said of Pirsig's book, "It forced me to decide what I was in publishing for." Indeed, Zen has given millions of readers an accessible, enjoyable book for seeking insight into their own lives.
9. M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker
Before the television series, there was the film. Before the film, there was the novel. Richard Hooker's unforgettable book about a medical unit serving in the Korean War was rejected by 21 publishers before eventually seeing the light of day. It remains a story of courage and friendship that connects with audiences around the world in times of war and peace.
Our list of repeatedly rejected best-selling books concludes on the next page with a horror classic.
