A second and less pessimistic explanation can also be found, however. Perhaps the dream of literary fame has, after so many years, simply discredited itself; perhaps fame no longer seems like an ethically sound ambition. Indeed, for as long as writers have wanted fame, they have also reproached themselves for wanting it. In The Dream of Scipio, Cicero has the ghost of the great general Scipio Africanus scorn the very idea of posthumous reputation. Even a fame that fills the Roman Empire, he points out, is parochial when considered from the point of view of the whole globe. The only trustworthy guide to action is not earthly acclaim but heavenly virtue, which is its own reward: "Therefore, if you will choose to look aloft and fix your gaze on this our resting-place and eternal home, nor ever enslave thyself to the rumours of the rabble, nor stake the hope of your life on the rewards of men: virtue must draw you by her own attraction to true glory; what others say of you, let that be their own concern." Milton seconded this view when he described fame as "the last infirmity of noble mind": if it spoke well of a person to long for fame, it was even better to transcend that longing.

The idea that ethics and ambition are at odds has returned, in our time, in a powerful new form. In a democratic and egalitarian society, after all, there is something inherently troubling about something so rare and difficult to achieve as literary fame. If the desire for recognition is universal, why should its achievement be limited to the handful of those born with literary genius? If every other kind of aristocracy is considered illegitimate, why should an aristocracy of talent be any different? The academic project of rewriting literary history to make room for the formerly disenfranchised is driven by some such intuition about the injustice of the economy of fame, which is premised on there not being enough to go around. Why should plenty not reign in this realm, as well?

This anti-canonical argument is easier to make if the canon itself ceases to have any validity—if literary fame comes to be seen not as the merited reward of genius, but as a lottery, in which the winners are chosen more or less at random. That is precisely the conclusion H.J. Jackson offers in her book, which is a kind of business-school case study in how the poets and novelists of the early 19th century achieved fame, or failed to achieve it. Why do we now read, teach and talk about Keats instead of Leigh Hunt, Wordsworth instead of Robert Southey, Austen instead of Mary Brunton? It is not, Jackson argues, because the former had genius and the latter only talent: "The historical record suggests, rather, that there are many ways of earning fame, and that while a minimum standard of literary competence can be taken for granted, not all famous writers owe their fame to outstanding literary merit alone (I would argue that none of them does)."

The fortunate few benefit, rather, from a number of circumstances unrelated to the merit of their writing. Wordsworth became famous in tandem with the rise of the domestic tourism industry, because he happened to live in and write about beautiful places that could become pilgrimage sites. Keats benefited from dying young, which made him eligible for Romantic myth-making—unlike, say, Barry Cornwall, an early sensation who grew old, became a lawyer, and stopped writing verse. Austen benefited from the family piety of her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, whose 1869 biography helped to spread her fame; Brunton had no such luck. In the case of William Blake, who at the time of his death was known as a poet to barely a handful of people, the posthumous devotion of scholars and other poets was essential to keeping him alive. How many other mute inglorious Blakes might be out there, their manuscripts mouldering away because they never happened to find the right reader? Emily Dickinson, who falls outside the scope of Jackson's study, is another famous example of a writer who perched, for a time, on the very knife-edge of oblivion.