George Orwell

What failed

In Paris he fell seriously ill, had his money stolen, and ended up washing dishes; the novels he was writing there did not survive. His first book was rejected by Jonathan Cape twice and then by T. S. Eliot at Faber, after which he abandoned the typescript at a friend's house. His next book was refused by three British publishers who feared a libel action; it came out in America in October 1934 and only reached Britain the following June, with the names changed. He was shot through the throat in Spain and then hunted out of the country, and when he wrote the book about it his own publisher refused it unread. It sold roughly half its print run in his lifetime. Then Animal Farm was turned down by four publishers, including Cape, who had accepted it and backed out after a government official warned him off — and Eliot, again.

What happened next

Secker and Warburg published Animal Farm in August 1945. Nineteen Eighty-Four followed in 1949. He died the year after that.

The point

The rejection letters are the point. Eliot told him the book did not appear possible as a publishing venture, and told him twelve years later that his view was not the right one from which to criticise the political situation. Both books are still in print. Being turned down by a great critic is evidence of nothing except that you sent it to him.