A picture of the rejection letter was sent in by Kylie Parkinson to the Twitter page Letters of Note, where it was shared with the rest of the internet.
It appears that Meyer had sent the Australian bookseller a sample of his poetry and they did not hold back when telling him exactly what they thought of his work.
The reply is only short but manages to expertly rip Meyer to shreds, in a fashion that suggests letters like this are a routine occurrence.
"Dear Sir, no you may not send us your verses, and we will not give you the name of another publisher. We hate no rival publisher sufficiently to ask you to inflict them on him," the letter reads.
"The specimen poem is simply awful. In fact, we have never seen worse. Yours faithfully, Angus and Robertson Ltd."
via GIPHY
Surprisingly, it looks like Meyer wasn't deterred by the harsh criticism, going on a year later to publish Pearls of the Blue Mountains of Australia, followed by Jewels of Mountains and Snowlines of New Zealand in 1934.
But Angus and Robertson weren't the only ones to think that he lacked some poetic skills, with extracts from his 1934 book featured in a "bad verse and awful poetry competition" held by New Zealand magazine Artscape in 2001.
A verse from his poem Maori Maiden was given as an example:
"I think — I understand thee well,
Rub my nose now for a spell!"
Lines from My Pet Dog were also cited, reading:
"Pluto! come here my dearest little dog,
Don't get mixed up with every rogue,
And do not run into a fog."
It just goes to show that even if you might not be the best, persistence can pay off.
