The Most-Rejected Books of All Time

Of course, this list is incomplete, and I've given preference to books that were rejected but are now well-known and widely loved. (Books that were rejected many times because they were pretty mediocre are just not as interesting.) Even with the higher-profile books, I discounted those with numbers I couldn't verify, or those that weren't specific enough-for instance, it looks like Margaret Mitchell's oft-repeated 38 rejections is a myth; Alex Haley may have gotten "hundreds" of rejections before publishing Roots, but they weren't all necessarily for the novel; ditto Kate DiCamillo's 473 rejections before Because of Winn-Dixie; Eimear McBride heard nothing but no for A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing for 7 years, but I don't know if she got ten nos or a hundred. Some authors, like Beatrix Potter and Proust, got so many rejections that they decided to self-publish-and good thing they did-but I don't have numbers on those either. If you do, give strength to your fellow rejectees and add on to the list in the comments.