I collect stuff like this in today's Guardian. Why? Because it makes me unfathomably happy and hopeful. These days a lot of people fall prey to the horrible availability error of talentless celebrities or posh actors telling them that they can be anything they want if they want it hard enough. Me, I fall prey to the desperate availability error of latching onto all those great writers discovered after decades of neglect. Particularly when they're not even much good. Each to their own. Anyway, here it is in all its glory.
'A Week on the Merrimack and Concord Rivers was published in 1849 and met with the worst of literary fates; not ridicule, but indifference. It sold only a few hundred copies and the publisher returned the rest to Thoreau, who had self-financed the venture (I love that bit best). It was not a good moment. "I have now a library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself" the author acidly notes in his journal of October 1853.'
Beautiful.
'A Week on the Merrimack and Concord Rivers was published in 1849 and met with the worst of literary fates; not ridicule, but indifference. It sold only a few hundred copies and the publisher returned the rest to Thoreau, who had self-financed the venture (I love that bit best). It was not a good moment. "I have now a library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself" the author acidly notes in his journal of October 1853.'
Beautiful.
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