5 great women writers who overcame literary rejection

They were vindicated, and their books became classics

Tales of literary rejection are the “war stories” of writers. Nearly everyone experiences it, even writers who eventually became famous and successful, but that doesn't make it any more fun.

In today’s edition of Literary Ladies Lite, we’ll take a look at five stories of writers who faced uphill battles to get their work published, but lived to tell another tale of vindication.

Rejection, we’ve been told, is part of the path to publication. We’re advised to grow a tough hide and accept that most rejections are nothing personal. Even so, any kind of rejection can stings—even the bland “not looking at this time.” That’s because it’s difficult to separate the rejection of one’s work from the rejection of one’s self.

Every “no” plants a seed of self-doubt. Even among now-classic authors, the experiences of self-doubt, fear of failure, and rejection, are universal. Some writers that have gone on to be renowned have been spared the blows of rejection, others were positively hammered by it (almost enough to give up), and most somewhere in between.

Let’s dive into how Charlotte Brontë, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Beatrix Potter, L.M. Montgomery, and Madeleine L’Engle picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and went on to be published. But first …

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The Professor by Charlotte Brontë (1857)

Charlotte Brontë was as discouraged as any aspiring author would be when her first novel, The Professor, met with continuous rejection or cold silence as it made its way around the London publishing houses in the 1840s.

Galling as it was to her, Charlotte didn’t sit idly by while waiting for each individual rejection to arrive by post (it was a one-at-a-time process back then). Instead, she busied herself on her next project. Finally, a publisher saw enough merit in The Professor to invite her to submit a different work for consideration. She already had Jane Eyre nearly finished and sent it off. The publisher printed and published it in mere weeks, whereupon it became an immediate sensation and a bestseller.

The Professor was published in 1857, two years after Charlotte's death at age thirty-eight. Though she died too young (though not as young as her sisters Anne and Emily), she had already become a celebrated author in England and abroad.

Truth be told, The Professor wasn’t her best work. It’s almost like a less developed version of Villette, which is considered a masterpiece. See more about The Professor and The Brontë Sisters' Path to Publication.