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Jane Austen Deals with Rejection.

We've seen this before. Person sends manuscript of a classic work to literary agents, touting it as an original work. When it gets rejected, everyone is amused. I know I am!

From the Daily Mail:
Mr Lassman, 43, submitted opening chapters of three of Austen's classic works - Northanger Abbey, first published in 1798, Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Persuasion (1818).

He typed them out himself, and signed them Alison Laydee after Austen's early pseudonym A Lady.

To offer a few more hints, he called Pride and Prejudice 'First Impressions', the original title for the story, and wrote a return address of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, where he works as the director of the Jane Austen Festival.

In response, the literary agency Christopher Little, which represents JK Rowling, said it was 'not confident of placing this material with a publisher.
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  1. Anonymous19/7/07 2:07 pm

    During my secondary school, my friend pick one of the Sasterawan Negara's poem and recite it infront of the class claiming that poem was his.

    The teacher said the poem was not really good enough. He's still need to learn a lot.

    He just smile and already proves his point to us.

    I bet, when you're noboby, you had to work really hard to get notice. You had to be extraordinary.

    But when you lucky enough to reach the top, even you presenting a clear shitty stuff on the plate, people still cheer and applause you.

    after all, they doesn't want to be called 'Buta Seni', Hihihi.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun19/7/07 2:12 pm

    Nazri, that's an awesome anecdote and I thank you for sharing it with us. It is true that what most people really see is the "name" and not the "work".

    (Some people accuse me of this with Haruki Murakami but that's a different story...)

    ReplyDelete
  3. sharkgila19/7/07 2:15 pm

    I read this short story once about time-travelling. Shakespeare got ported into the future, where he attended a university class - on Shakespeare - and failed terribly. And he was so crushed!

    I can't remember the title or author but I liked the plot so much I remembered it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ted Mahsun19/7/07 2:18 pm

    Haha! Maybe Shakespeare didn't know that once a work's released to the public, it's no longer his! I'm interested in finding this short story. Could you give me any leads?

    ReplyDelete

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