Important Papers That Were Rejected (Several Times) ...

FIONA MACDONALD, 8 Scientific Papers That Were Rejected Before Going on to Win a Nobel Prize, Science Alert, 19 AUGUST 2016.

Peer-review involves having a group of independent researchers read every paper submitted to a journal to make sure that the methods and conclusions are solid. They will often suggest revisions to be made, and can reject a paper if they think more work needs to be done, or if it's not the right fit for the journal.

Following rejection, the end product is usually better than it would have been originally - or it at least, ends up in a more appropriate journal.

Joshua S. Gans and George B. Shepherd, How Are the Mighty Fallen: Rejected Classic Articles by Leading Economists, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter, 1994), pp. 165-179.

This paper presents a selection of dispatches from the publication battlefront. We begin by discussing rejections that winners of the Nobel Prize and John Bates Clark Medal have endured, and some other notable cases. We then turn to the record of John Maynard Keynes' quirky refusals, when he was the Economics Journal's editor, of several important articles and authors. Finally, we offer some thoughts about the implications of these findings.