Stephen R. Donaldson was someone I read back before I collected first editions, and the Thomas Covenant books were ones I read despite disliking the central character.
But I had a chance to grab signed firsts of the second Thomas Covenant trilogy from the same collector culling his collection as the previous Vance, Blaylock, etc. entries. All of these replaced unsigned book club copies.
The story I’ve heard from a couple of places is that Lester Del Rey’s boss at Del Rey/Ballantine (I’m assuming Ian Ballantine) walked by Lester’s office and asked “Shouldn’t we be getting in the new Donald Covenant manuscript soon?”
Del Rey: “Oh, I rejected it.”
Long pause. “You what?” Keep in mind that at this point, Donaldson was the biggest selling author in all of Ballantine Books.
Del Rey: “Yeah, it was told from a woman’s viewpoint. Books told from a woman’s viewpoint don’t sell to fantasy readers.”
The publisher stood there for a few seconds, then walked out without another word and called Donaldson from his office.
“Stephen, what are you doing right now?”
“I’m looking at the rejection letter Lester sent me.”
“OK, from now on, I’m your editor. Send me the manuscript.”
Many years of profitable publishing then ensued…
