List of Rejections

David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress was rejected fifty-four times before it was finally accepted by Dalkey Archive Press. (Knopf apparently rejected the manuscript on three separate occasions.)

“I suspect it set a record. For years, the highest number of turndowns I’d ever heard of was thirty-six, on The Ginger Man. Then I read in the Deirdre Bair biography that Murphy had about forty two. Ironweed had a dozen, as I recall, and I once jokingly told Bill Kennedy while Wittgenstein was going around that if rejections were any sign of quality, then mine was already twice as good as his. But then I left Donleavy and Beckett in the dust also.”

- David Markson in conversation with Joseph Tabbi