Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1880 — Rejected Manuscripts. [ARTICLE]

Rejected Manuscripts.

Authors have a hard time to find publishers before they win reputation and their works become famous. Thackeray carried his “ Vanity Fair” to nearly a score of publishers before its merits were discovered, and Charlotte Bronte had a similar experience with “Jane Eyre.” Kinglake could find no one willing to take “ Eothen,” one of the most ele-gantly-written works of our century, and finally made it a present to a publisher, after frankly stating his bad luck. Anthony Trollope, who has accumulated a fortune by his popular novels, received only .$66 for his first year’s labors in literature, and SIOO for the second.

Mr. Motley’s great book, “The Rise of the Dutch Republic,” was declined by Mr. Murray, “ with compliments and thanks,” and Carlyle’s “French Revolution ” was returned with the same courtly refusal. Even Lord Macaulay had two or three articles returned from the Edinburgh Review. This, however, was not due to their want of merit, or to the editor’s failure to discern it, but solely to the jealousy of Lord Brougham. Any young writer who hopes to win fame or fortune without hard struggles may cool his enthusiasm by thinking of such repulses.