Pride & Prejudice Rejected By Publishers Today

[Midas]

Although I posted this in another thread 'Best Love Story'. I felt it of possible sufficient general interest to warrant a separate thread.

It seems Jane Austen's works would be rejected by many leading publishers and literary agents if submitted today.

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Here is the link from which the following was extracted: Pride And Prejudice: Just not good enough to publish (http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/13972/Pride+and+Prejudice?+Just+not+good+enough+to+publi sh): ....".....Astonishingly, only one out of 18 publishers or literary agents recognised that the opening chapters were copies – word for word – of Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Only the titles and the characters’ names had been changed by prank*ster David Lassman, 43.

Quite apart from not recognising these classic novels, the publishers also rejected them – turning down flat the offerings of one of Britain’s finest ever woman novelists............"
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Among much this tells us, or convinces us, is just how hard it is for a new writer to get even read by a publisher, never mind accepted.
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[Midas]

For some reasons it is not pasting the full link. I will try again:-

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/13972/Pride+and+Prejudice?+Just+not+good+enough+to+publi sh


If this does not work out go to Daily Express on-line and type in the search -
Publishers reject Jane Austen

No, it comes out on the pre submit. But when submitted, it breaks up the link and leaves out parts

[Logos]

That is the forum software doing that. It automatically abridges links (yours is 94 characters) that are over about 40 characters and makes it a hyperlink so that the link doesn't force the page beyond the right-hand margin, thankfully! But the text is all there and the link works fine when people click on it :)

[Nossa]

This is just so wrong. Get me ONE writer now who writes half as good as Jane Austen, I mean please, she's agreed on as one of the most important and best writers of all time..and they wanna tell us now that her works are not good enought to be published???!!!!!??????!!!!!

[grace86]

What bothers me is publishers don't recognize the story. PUBLISHERS, you'd think they'd have to be a bit well read and that Austen would be on the top of the list!

That says a lot about how hard it is and what type of literature they ARE publishing today.

[Pensive]

What bothers me is publishers don't recognize the story. PUBLISHERS, you'd think they'd have to be a bit well read and that Austen would be on the top of the list!

That says a lot about how hard it is and what type of literature they ARE publishing today.

Ummm...I also feel the same way. It's a bit strange, well actually more than a bit.

[Nossa]

I agree..it IS very stange that the ones responsible for publishing books now are not familiar with Austen's works. Who knows, maybe in a few years from now, we'll find people wondering about Hamlet and Macbeth.
What's really weird is that, Jane Austen's work were in the list of the top 100 books that are most read in the UK...now publishers don't even know what is Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey?!!

[worddance]

I think it has to do with the style of Jane Austen's books. Her books were written in the 19th century and were appropriate to audiences in that century. That kind of slow moving prose wouldn't make it as a new title in today's marketplace.

If Jane were writing today, her novels would reflect the current tastes and I'd like to think they wouldn't have any trouble being published.

However, I agree that people making those kinds of decisions ought to be able to recognize well-known and well-loved literature when they see it.

[PeterL]

I'm mildly surprised that no one recognized the stories, but I'm not surprised that the novels were rejected. The language is stilted, and the situation is rather dated. A modern rewrite of her novels might be successful.

[AuntShecky]

I mentioned Jane Austen's rejection last week in a post in
"General Chat;" the title was "Feeling Rejected?"

[Midas]

I think you are all missing the point. The manuscripts were probably never read, or even looked at by someone other than a 'junior' charged with sending out the rejection slips between making the coffee.

These publishers are inundated with stacks of manuscripts arriving daily. This is true even more so today since the word processor and now the computer.

So many want to be writers, and so many people have talent besides the thousands who don't. The book market is not short of writers - established ones.

There is a moral, or lesson to this. If you want to be a writer, you have to get an edge, an 'in' with a top agent. The days of approaching a publisher direct have gone - unless he is a friend, or a friend of a friend (if you know what I mean). Oh! and your work has to be good, obviously, and reasonably well edited, and what the market is looking for.

Good agents, have good contacts. So, 'sell' to the agent first.

I am not arguing what is right,and fair, just telling it like it is.

Of course, you could be one in a million and be lucky going direct - you could also win the lottery if you try.

[vili]

If Jane were writing today, her novels would reflect the current tastes and I'd like to think they wouldn't have any trouble being published.

However, I agree that people making those kinds of decisions ought to be able to recognize well-known and well-loved literature when they see it.
I think that worddance is right here. Although Midas's point about the publishing industry is also spot on.

There have actually been quite a number of "tests" like these recently. I remember at least four from the past few years, two of which have involved a Jane Austen novel.

Also, I think that anyone who has taken a literature exam at a university and has had to recognize works based on just a few lines of text know how difficult a task like that is, in the end. And these people didn't even expect to be in a test like that -- it is, in the end, not really what they are there for.

[tinustijger]

No it's not what they're there for, but complete chapters Jane Austen?
And anyway: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" should really be recognised by anybody!!! Especially people in the literary business!

I'm not surprised they wouldn't publish her work now though, it's just not of this time.

[Midas]

Had they bothered to read them - even a couple of paragraphs, they would have realised they were not in the syntax of today - even if it were a contemporary author writing a 'period' novel.

If it is a period novel written by a modern writer, it could contain speech in the idiom, or syntax of the day in dialogue. However, it would be the rest of it which would arouse suspicion. Modern writers are more economical with their words, generally, with shorter sentences, and paragraphs. The majority of modern readers have far more distractions, and weaned in an 'instant' culture than their 19th and 18th century forebears.

If a submitted manuscript deviated from this, it would arouse suspicion, and would be rejected because of the syntax anyway.

No, I believe they were never read - not even a paragraph, by a competent person.

Then, of course, we have to remember that almost every published writer, classical and modern, have had their work rejected many times when submitted.

Even best selling contemporary ones: The following is from Jewish Review:

'............Not long ago Rowling was a single mother living on welfare in an unheated Edinburgh flat. She would push a stroller through the streets until her young daughter fell asleep, then she would nurse a cup of coffee in a warm cafe while she wrote about a bespectacled 11-year-old orphan boy whose parents were wizards.

Nine British publishers rejected her first Harry Potter manuscript. A few years later the first three Harry Potter novels occupied the top three positions on the New York Times hardback best-seller list, and the paperback editions of the first two were Nos. 1 and 2 among paperback best sellers.............'

Budding writers, take note of the moral.

[Zippy]

This reminds me of an article I read in Writing Magazine quite recently. The author was trying to argue that it was impossible to get your work published on spec these days and that publishers only consider work written by established authors or which come via a select group of agents.

To test his theory, the author plagiarised extracts from a William Faulkner story and sent it to a variety of magazine publishers. Out of the twenty or so he sent it to none would publish this story by a ‘recognised master’ and only one identified it as Faulkner’s work.

Big deal. Faulkner is one of the most inaccessible writers in history, recognised for his technical mastery and innovative style of writing, rather than his popular appeal or story values. Magazines need to make a profit and no-one wants to read Faulkner for entertainment value.

Similarly, Austen, although rightly recognised as a genius of the early novel form, just would not sell in today’s market. Despite the fact that the publishers which the manuscript was sent to did not recognise it as Pride and Prejudice (which I agree is a scandal), they would have picked up almost immediately on the formal, archaic ‘tone’ of the writing and the out-dated subject matter and realised that it wasn’t for a modern market. They’re looking for the next big thing not a pastiche of nineteenth century writing.

This is not in any way a criticism of Austen or Faulkner’s work. I admire both writers immensely; however, it is important to keep them in context. They were innovators and each in their own way revolutionised writing. They’ve taken their rightful place in the literary canon and that’s where they belong. Let’s have an innovative writer for the twenty-first century instead of plagiarising writing from over a hundred years ago and then moaning about how no-one recognised quality these days!