Rejection Letters Received by Bestselling Authors - Would they have self-published today?

mental_floss Blog - Try, Try Again: Rejection Letters Received by Bestselling Authors:

"These best-selling authors were rejected, too, and some not very kindly. Editors, publishers and agents have made big errors in judgment, as evidenced by the list of unkind (and sometimes needlessly rude) rejections received by these famous writers."

From George Orwell and William Golding to Stephen King, some of our greatest authors have faced the dreaded rejection letter.
The rise of effective (as in you don't have to stand in the street trying to sell photocopied, hand-bound pamphlets) self-publishing will pretty much make the rejection letter a minor nuisance rather than a career ender. How the great written works will rise above the crowd in the future remains to be seen.