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Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

In 2018, Disney transformed a wrinkle in time, a classic work of children's literature to the silver screen.

There was a lot of excitement around the effort to turn the beloved book into a movie, and huge stars like Oprah Winfrey signed up to star. But that enthusiastic reaction

isn't exactly what the book got in 1960 when author Madeline Langel was trying to publish it.

This is what the publisher said. No. That's right, Langel, now a literary icon, could not find

a publisher willing to take on the book. For decades, Langel, now a literary icon, could not find a publisher willing to take on the book.

For decades, Langel would speak about the crisis of confidence she suffered as publisher after publisher rejected the manuscript she believed in to her core.

She said she received 26 rejection letters, most of which she just threw away.

But the few that she did keep offer a look at the confusion that Langel's inventive science

fiction fantasy with its girl heroin and spiritual undertones, caused publishers throughout

New York.

In case after case, when they couldn't categorize the book into a defined genre, they vetoed

it.

Here's how one editor blew it off in a letter.

Quote, this is pleasantly done, but for me, there isn't quite enough story value. Oh, and they thought the novel

was way too long. One editor told Langel's agent, quote, before submitting it elsewhere, I would

advise the author to do a cutting job on it by half. Ouch. The rejections defined her life and career. In her journal, Langel described the pain of such

offhand criticism. Portions of her diary are included in a new biography called Becoming Madeline,

which is authored by her granddaughter and sister. Langel wrote, quote, each rejection, no matter

how philosophically expected, is a wound.

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