20 Things You Didn’t Know About Dune

9. It Was Published… By An Auto-repair Manual Company

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Universal Pictures

Rejections of highly successful novels are incredibly common, a fact made funnier in retrospect when measured up to the immense success of said books. Harry Potter was rejected 12 times, Twilight 10 times and Dune was knocked back a whopping 25 times. One publisher, clearly in a fit of Spice-induced prophecy, quipped that “I might be making the mistake of the decade, but…”

The company that finally chose to take a punt on Herbert’s hyper-weird magnum opus was the Chilton Book Company who - at the time - exclusively published auto-repair manuals. It’s unclear to this day why they chose to take the risk other than just… really digging the story?

Despite this rather peculiar path to publication, Chilton's initial gamble would go on to pay them back dividends in later years. Herbert even joked that they might rename the book 'How to Repair Your Ornithopter' to better fit with their catalogue.

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Total goblin. Quit the food and beverage industry after ten years to try my hand at writing nonsense online. I have a huge passion for film, television, cats, art, tattoos, food, anarchy and classic literature (mainly Dune). Currently based at my mum's house, I can be best reached on Instagram (@charlie_marx) where I attempt to soothe my mental health with memes.