The closing essay in the September 9 New York Times Book Review, by David Oshinsky, a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian from the University of Texas-Austin, lets Times readers in on the not widely known fact that Alfred A. Knopf once rejected Lolita–along with other well-known works by literary giants: Jorge Luis Borges, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Anais Nin, Sylvia Plath, and James Baldwin. The essay,”No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov,” takes as its subject the archived reader’s reports from Alfred A. Knopf that are housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at UT-Austin.
But we actually published the Knopf readers’ reports urging rejection of all these major writers. And we did it seven years ago.
Reading the essay was a bit of deja-vu, and it made me briefly proud to reflect that every so often a “little” magazine like TMR, with a minimal staff and strained budget, can “scoop” a major newspaper like The New York Times.
I’m talking about our winter, 2000 issue, which featured excerpts of classic rejections from the Knopf files, along with Knopf readers’ (Judith Jones, for instance, and Blanche Knopf herself) comments on the writers mentioned above, along with such other name authors as Peter Mathiessen, Italo Calvino, Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea), John Barth (Giles Goat Boy). And more. Our popular Knopf files feature included a sidebar interview with Knopf editor Ashbel Green that shed light on both the reports we published and the challenges and rewards of commercial book publishing.
I enjoyed Oshinksy’s essay, which provided intelligent commentary on, among other things, great books of history that Knopf had once passed on, as well as rejections “then” and now. However I couldn’t help but reflect that our feature, with the verbatim reports, close facsimiles of the original manuscript records, concise and helpful footnotes and an engaging interview with Green, was bigger and better.
6 responses so far ↓
1
ambrose mensch
// Sep 17, 2007 at 11:38 am
In that Winter, 2000 issue is Barth’s _Giles Goat-Boy_ one of the excerpted Knopf rejections?
2
Matt Pearce
// Sep 19, 2007 at 2:11 pm
If I remember correctly, the Barth novel in that issue was an early draft of “End of the Road”– though the rejection slip had it under a different working title, which is slipping my mind right now…
3
susancushman
// Sep 20, 2007 at 12:34 am
Kudos, Evelyn and The Missouri Review staff! Watch your mailbox for a surprise, and read my nod to you in my guest post on A Good Blog is Hard To Find–the Southern writers’ blog run by Karin Gillespie–this coming Sunday, September 23: http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/. Especially the last line! (aren’t you curious?)
4
susancushman
// Sep 20, 2007 at 12:37 am
P.S. How come my name didn’t automatically link to my blog when I left a comment like the others’ did? My blog is at http://wwwpenandpalette-susancushman.blogspot.com/.
5
Evelyn Somers
// Sep 21, 2007 at 11:37 am
The feature did also include a report on Giles Goat-Boy, which was very uncomplimentary, questioning both the project and the potential market for the book. Among other things, the reader calls it the work of “a pedant who has seized on the worst possible idea for him” and says that even Fantasy and S-F magazine would not publish it because there would be no way to condense it.
6
Patrick Lane
// Sep 24, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Susan,
As I understand the system, your name should link to whatever website you enter into your profile. Make sure the link starts with “http://” and it should work. You can modify your profile under the “User” tab when you log in.
If that doesn’t work, let me know and we’ll try to get to the bottom of it.
–Patrick Lane
TMR Webmaster
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