While writing Dune, Frank Herbert was under a lot of pressure from his publisher to quickly turn out a 20,000 word manuscript that when then be edited by his publisher and then printed. The original manuscript is barely like Dune as we know it: no Fremen, no religious, political, or ecological questions raised.
Had Herbert succumbed to his publisher's pressures and published a heavily edited shorter version of Dune (entitled Spice Planet) we would have been deprived of one of the most famous and influential works of science fiction ever written, as well as the resultant Chronicles. What would be the effect on literature?