NY Times Book Review published an essay about the Knopf Publishing Group, an arm of Random House, and its near-misses in rejecting what are now famous or even household pieces of literature.

The Knopf library is amazing - 17 Nobel prize winning authors, 47 Pulitzers. No slouches, they. But even Babe Ruth struck out over a thousand times. (He also put one over the far wall for every two strikeouts, mind you.)

The essay draws from the Knopf archives, where responses to every submission are available for public perusal. Most are kind and encouraging, but some are zingers. I'm sure many are deserved, but this essay calls out the outliers that are shown though history's unblinking eye to be of higher quality than the judgment a single publisher or label, no matter its reknown.

And it closes with a zinger of one, though not as unprofessional as the one netter received. (Will gladly update the link above with one to the exact journal entry if netta would be so kind as to jog my memory. But not too hard.)