IT must rate as the literary snub of the 20th century. T S Eliot, one of Britain's greatest poets, rejected George Orwell's Animal Farm for publication on the grounds of its unconvincing Trotskyite politics. Eliot, a former director of Faber and Faber, the publisher, wrote his rejection in a highly critical letter in 1944, one of many private papers made available for the first time by his widow Valerie for a BBC documentary. When Orwell submitted his novel, an allegory on Stalin's dictatorship, Eliot praised its "good writing" and "fundamental integrity".
T S Eliot thought Animal Farm had "good writing" and "fundamental integrity", but also thought it was unconvincing.
( z1 contrast :ARG1 ( z2 think :ARG0 ( z3 person :name ( z4 name :op "T" :op "S" :op "Eliot" ) ) :ARG1 ( z5 have :ARG0 ( z6 work-of-art :name ( z7 name :op "Animal" :op "Farm" ) ) :ARG1 ( z8 and :op ( z9 write :ARG1-of ( z10 good ) ) :op ( z11 integrity :mod ( z12 fundamental ) ) ) ) ) )