Bad Reviews of the Famous

Anyone who has had a bad review knows how traumatic is it, but reviewers don’t know everything.  Here are what some reviewers have said in the past.

"Sentimental rubbish... Show me one page that contains an idea"-- Odessa Courier on Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1877.

"Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down"-- Lord Byron, 1814.

"His fame is gone out like a candle in a snuff and his memory will always stink" -- Wm. Winstanley, 1687 on Milton.

"Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer" -- La Figaro, 1857.

"This is a book of the season only"-- NY Herald Tribune on The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"We do not believe in the permanence of his reputation... our children will wonder what their ancestors could have meant by putting Dickens at the head of the novelists of today."-- Saturday Review, 1858.

"Nothing odd will do long.  Tristam Shandy did not last" -- Samuel Johnson in 1776 on a novel that is still in print over 200 years later.

"The only consolation which we have in reflecting upon it is that it will never be generally read" --J. Lorimer reviewing Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, 1847.

For a contemporary view, go to Amazon and read some of the reviews of your favorite authors.