...when a budding author sent typed chapters of Jane Austen’s novels to 18 [publishers], changing just the titles and characters’ names, only one recognised her words.
Another managed to recognise they were ‘a really original read’. But the rest simply rejected them or never responded, according to the man who posted the manuscripts, David Lassman.
“It was unbelievable,” he said. “If the major publishers can’t recognise great literature, who knows what might be slipping through the net?
“Here is one of the greatest writers that has lived, with her oeuvre securely fixed in the English canon and yet only one recipient recognised them as Austen’s work.”
Reminds me of the Joshua Bell incident.
