FREE! Click here to Join FunTrivia. Thousands of games, quizzes, and lots more!
Quiz about Eventually I Found Love
Quiz about Eventually I Found Love

Eventually I Found Love Trivia Quiz


Eventually, these classics found love, but at one point, they were tossed aside or angrily dismissed by publishers. Can you recognize the book or author from its publication history? Good luck!

A multiple-choice quiz by adams627. Estimated time: 5 mins.
  1. Home
  2. »
  3. Quizzes
  4. »
  5. Literature Trivia
  6. »
  7. Literature: Something in Common
  8. »
  9. Hit or Miss

Author
adams627
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
348,113
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Easy
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
1723
Awards
Top 5% quiz!
Last 3 plays: MikeX56 (7/10), jasa9092 (8/10), spidersfull (10/10).
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. With his highly-experimental 1851 novel, one author probably didn't expect to be rejected by a publisher who said, "We regret to say that our united opinion is entirely against the book as we do not think it would be at all suitable for the Juvenile Market in [England]. It is very long, rather old-fashioned..."

The author's friend Nathaniel Hawthorne also apparently "didn't care a penny for the book," which didn't become popular for more than 50 years after its publication. Which novel by the author of "Billy Budd" is it?
Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. After this American poet was rejected by fifteen publishers for his wartime masterpiece "The Enormous Room," he dedicated the book to them once it was finally published. Then, since the publishers clearly hadn't learned, he did the same thing for the fourteen publishers who denied another of his books, "No Thanks." Who was this poet, better known for short works like "anyone lived in a pretty how town"? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Surely a literary personage as great as TS Eliot would know great literature when he saw it? Not necessarily: upon reading this short fable, he claimed it "wasn't convincing...After all, your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore are the best qualified to run the farm...what was needed (someone might argue) was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs."

What novella published in 1945 was thus wrongly dismissed?

Answer: (Two Words)
Question 4 of 10
4. About one author's best known work, it was said: "[The author] does have enormous talent of a very special kind. But this is not a well made novel, nor a saleable one nor even, I think, a good one. His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly expresses the feverish travels, geographically and mentally, of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don't think so."

What novel, allegedly written on a scroll and depicting characters like Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise, is it?
Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. "It is overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian. To the public, it will be revolting. It will not sell, and will do immeasurable harm to a growing reputation.... I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years."

When the book finally was published, it was lauded by Graham Greene as one of the best books of 1955, leading another critic to call it "sheer unrestrained pornography." Who was the Russian author of that controversial novel about Humbert Humbert?
Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. One author who had no difficulty getting published for the first time ran into trouble with his best-known novel when it wasn't accepted for serialization. The only magazine available? Hugh Hefner's "Playboy". What book with characters like Mildred Montag, Clarisse McClellan, and fire chief Captain Beatty, is it? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Upon rejecting the manuscript submitted by the girl's father Otto, one publisher noted that "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level."

Who was the young girl mentioned in the quote?
Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. "I haven't the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say. Apparently the author intends it to be funny - possibly even satire - but it is really not funny on any intellectual level."

Decades of readers would disagree about that editorial assessment, which apparently didn't find any humor in the antics of Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder. Who was the author subjected to that criticism?
Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. Apparently one editor missed the parts of a certain novel in which Simon is murdered by a group of paranoid children fearing the Beast, or in which Ralph is hunted to death on a desert island. About which of these books was the author informed that it was "an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull"? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. About his most famous novel, which American author was told, "You'd have a decent book if you'd get rid of that Gatsby character"? Hint



(Optional) Create a Free FunTrivia ID to save the points you are about to earn:

arrow Select a User ID:
arrow Choose a Password:
arrow Your Email:




Most Recent Scores
Nov 26 2024 : MikeX56: 7/10
Nov 26 2024 : jasa9092: 8/10
Nov 26 2024 : spidersfull: 10/10
Nov 26 2024 : haydenspapa: 10/10
Nov 26 2024 : doh1: 9/10
Nov 26 2024 : Lord_Digby: 6/10
Nov 26 2024 : Luckycharm60: 10/10
Nov 26 2024 : misstified: 10/10
Nov 26 2024 : KenX: 10/10

Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. With his highly-experimental 1851 novel, one author probably didn't expect to be rejected by a publisher who said, "We regret to say that our united opinion is entirely against the book as we do not think it would be at all suitable for the Juvenile Market in [England]. It is very long, rather old-fashioned..." The author's friend Nathaniel Hawthorne also apparently "didn't care a penny for the book," which didn't become popular for more than 50 years after its publication. Which novel by the author of "Billy Budd" is it?

Answer: Moby Dick

Herman Melville called "Moby-Dick" his masterpiece far before any of his critics; when the book was published, it was scathingly attacked. Contemporaries far preferred Melville's earlier novels "Typee" and "Omoo" (which, incidentally, have faded into obscurity since). Melville's long-time "friend-whom-he-got-into-a-life-feud-with" Nathaniel Hawthorne praised the powerful novel about Captain Ahab's endless pursuit of the White Whale. However, he was one of the only ones. It didn't help that British publishers managed to leave the epilogue out of the novel, in which it's revealed that Ishmael survives the fight with Moby Dick to tell the tale. Critics in London complained that the first-person narrative was inconsistent if the teller died during its events!

Melville was largely forgotten, in fact, until after World War I. The efforts of Carl van Doren and DH Lawrence to recognize "Moby-Dick" as a so-called "Great American Novel" led to a resurgence in popularity of Melville's other works too.
2. After this American poet was rejected by fifteen publishers for his wartime masterpiece "The Enormous Room," he dedicated the book to them once it was finally published. Then, since the publishers clearly hadn't learned, he did the same thing for the fourteen publishers who denied another of his books, "No Thanks." Who was this poet, better known for short works like "anyone lived in a pretty how town"?

Answer: E.E. Cummings

Like many other American writers during the early twentieth century, Edward Estlin Cummings served as an ambulance driver in Europe during World War I. The war would inform several of his early works, including the autobiographical novel "The Enormous Room." That book was published in 1921 and took its title from the jail cell in which Cummings lived when he was imprisoned in France for several months of 1917. Cummings' light-hearted response to his publishers' rejection was nothing compared to the modernist styles he would later promote. Beginning with 1923's "Tulips and Chimneys," ee cummings (as he would insist upon being called) used unconventional forms of capitalization and punctuation.

This, in addition to other stylistic changes (for example, naming the protagonist of a poem "anyone"), catapulted his reputation as an avant-garde poet and a national sensation.

Despite that, he still found difficulty publishing "No Thanks" in 1935, so I guess even well-respected authors can encounter frustrations with their publishers!
3. Surely a literary personage as great as TS Eliot would know great literature when he saw it? Not necessarily: upon reading this short fable, he claimed it "wasn't convincing...After all, your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore are the best qualified to run the farm...what was needed (someone might argue) was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs." What novella published in 1945 was thus wrongly dismissed?

Answer: Animal Farm

George Orwell's classic allegory for the Russian Revolution, "Animal Farm", didn't get through its publication history easily. Orwell had originally titled the novella "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story", but US publishers would have nothing of it, removing the subtitle the year after the book was published. Orwell was also informed that it is "impossible to sell animal stories in the USA." The greatest insult to the author, however, came from fellow writer TS Eliot, who was working for publishing company Faber and Faber when he rejected the manuscript. Why? Eliot found the book's "Trotskyite" leanings a bit much, and he disagreed with such an obvious critique of the USSR in the middle of WW2 (the letter was written in 1944; the book was published in August of 1945 just as the war was ending).

At the least, Eliot praised Orwell's abilities, claiming that the book was "good writing of fundamental identity" and comparing it in quality to Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels".
4. About one author's best known work, it was said: "[The author] does have enormous talent of a very special kind. But this is not a well made novel, nor a saleable one nor even, I think, a good one. His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly expresses the feverish travels, geographically and mentally, of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don't think so." What novel, allegedly written on a scroll and depicting characters like Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise, is it?

Answer: "On the Road" - Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" is one of the crowning achievements of America's "Beat Generation", a counterculture literary movement centered around anti-materialism, experimentation, and an exuberance for life. Kerouac's novel not only embodies the themes of Beat; he also included its major players in the novel itself. Protagonist Sal Paradise is the alter ego of Kerouac himself; his mentor Dean Moriarty can be seen as real-life Kerouac friend Neal Cassady. Poet Carlo Marx is an analog to Allan Ginsberg, another Beat author, and William S. Burroughs is represented by Old Bull Lee. Understandably, the sprawling novel met with distaste from its publishers. Even young publishers were hesitant to accept Kerouac's work, but once it was published in 1957 (six years after it was finished), it received rave reviews from "The New York Times" and several other critics.
5. "It is overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian. To the public, it will be revolting. It will not sell, and will do immeasurable harm to a growing reputation.... I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years." When the book finally was published, it was lauded by Graham Greene as one of the best books of 1955, leading another critic to call it "sheer unrestrained pornography." Who was the Russian author of that controversial novel about Humbert Humbert?

Answer: Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov is probably best-known today for a book he admitted to being a personal favorite, "Lolita". The novel centers around Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged handsome man who is inexplicably attracted to young girls, whom he calls "nymphets". After his wife leaves him, he moves to America, moves in with Charlotte Haze and her daughter Dolores ("Lolita"), and proceeds into a romantic relationship which ends rather badly.

The frank response of many critics is unsurprising given such a controversial subject matter. British publishers refused, so "Lolita" was actually first published in France, with "Olympia Press," a company known for publishing all-but pornography. Pretty much nobody noticed. Then, British hero author Graham Greene picked the book out of nowhere to be an instant classic, and the press went back to attacking Nabokov's work. One publisher called it "the filthiest book I have ever read," and the book was banned in both England and France. Surprisingly, it saw virtually no controversy upon its successful 1958 release in the United States.
6. One author who had no difficulty getting published for the first time ran into trouble with his best-known novel when it wasn't accepted for serialization. The only magazine available? Hugh Hefner's "Playboy". What book with characters like Mildred Montag, Clarisse McClellan, and fire chief Captain Beatty, is it?

Answer: Fahrenheit 451

Luckily, Ray Bradbury didn't have to contend with censorship with his science fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451." Rather, he could not find anyone who was willing to serialize the book about a futuristic dystopia in which firemen burn books. The novel, which began as a short story entitled "Bright Phoenix" and was expanded to its eventual size, was first published in its own right in 1953 by Ballantine Books.

However, in the 50s, science fiction works were often printed serially, with a few chapters being released at a time.

The only deal that Bradbury could work out was for "Playboy" magazine to print selections of the classic in its early third, fourth, and fifth issues.
7. Upon rejecting the manuscript submitted by the girl's father Otto, one publisher noted that "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level." Who was the young girl mentioned in the quote?

Answer: Anne Frank

Anne Frank's narration of the 26 months in which she, her family, and several others hid in an annex in Amsterdam to avoid capture was published in 1947. Miep Gies, a helper of the family, collected Anne's diary and gave it back to Otto, Anne's father and the only member of the family to survive Auschwitz when they were captured.

The book sold more than 30 million copies, so clearly the publisher that Otto faced missed a golden opportunity. In fact, "The Diary of a Young Girl", as the book was eventually published, was rejected sixteen times before finally getting an English-language publisher in 1952.
8. "I haven't the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say. Apparently the author intends it to be funny - possibly even satire - but it is really not funny on any intellectual level." Decades of readers would disagree about that editorial assessment, which apparently didn't find any humor in the antics of Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder. Who was the author subjected to that criticism?

Answer: Joseph Heller

Joseph Heller's classic war comedy "Catch-22" might be one of the most polarizing books of all time, earning response as varied as "A wild, moving, shocking, hilarious, raging, exhilarating, giant roller-coaster of a book" ("The New York Herald Tribune") to "doesn't even seem to be written; instead, it gives the impression of having been shouted onto paper," and "what remains is a debris of sour jokes ("The New Yorker").

The novel was actually originally titled "Catch-18", but the number was changed in response to the release of Leon Uris' "Mila-18," also about World War II. Then, publishers threw out the suggestion of "Catch-11," because of the recent release of the movie "Ocean's Eleven." "Stalag 17" ruled out the use of the number 17, and the number 14 was Xed out because one publisher thought that it wasn't a very funny number. Eventually, 22 stuck.
9. Apparently one editor missed the parts of a certain novel in which Simon is murdered by a group of paranoid children fearing the Beast, or in which Ralph is hunted to death on a desert island. About which of these books was the author informed that it was "an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull"?

Answer: "Lord of the Flies" - William Golding

William Golding's tale about a group of British boys abandoned on a desert island after a plane crash is itself based on an earlier novel by RM Ballantyne entitled "The Coral Island." In that book, Ralph, Jack, and Peterkin construct a stable society before facing conflict from pirates and Polynesian natives. In Golding's less optimistic book, however, it is human nature and innate evil responsible for the breakup of society.

Such a negative theme, particularly in a novel about British children, was inevitably going to raise eyebrows, but "Lord of the Flies" received very poor response, being rejected by 20 different publishers before it was finally accepted. The most notable response was by a critic who called it "rubbish and dull." "Lord of the Flies" was Golding's first novel, but considering the author later received the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize for his trilogy "The Rites of Passage", he probably knew what he was doing.
10. About his most famous novel, which American author was told, "You'd have a decent book if you'd get rid of that Gatsby character"?

Answer: F Scott Fitzgerald

By contemporaries, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" was judged to be inferior to the author's earlier works "This Side of Paradise" and "The Beautiful and Damned." It didn't sell as well, and when you get a rejection telling you to get rid of your title character, that's not a good sign. Gatsby wasn't forgiven until after Fitzgerald's death.

There were other books and authors rejected that I didn't have room to fit into the quiz: here are a few.

"We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell." --Stephen King's "Carrie"
"Good God, I can't publish this!" --William Faulkner's "Sanctuary"
"There certainly isn't enough genuine talent for us to take notice." --Sylvia Plath
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." --Rudyard Kipling
"Irresponsible holiday story."--Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows"
"For your own sake, do not publish this book."--DH Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover"
Source: Author adams627

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
Related Quizzes
This quiz is part of series Commission #21:

Sometimes, playing around with titles can force authors to get creative. In this Quiz Commission, our Author Lounge members were told to add a word in their title or change a word in their title to make a quiz out of it. This one launched back in March 2012.

  1. Sports on Earth Average
  2. Top or Cheese Easier
  3. Please, No Peas Average
  4. Money for Candy Very Easy
  5. Aral Is Lost Tough
  6. The Bitter Truth Easier
  7. Veni Vidi Dixi Average
  8. Dice or Die? Very Easy
  9. Shy, Not Retiring Easier
  10. Music Repeats Itself Average
  11. Dinner is Framed Average
  12. Sun And Steroids? Easier

12/22/2024, Copyright 2024 FunTrivia, Inc. - Report an Error / Contact Us