I can’t tell you how many books, short stories, essays, and gosh knows what else I’ve started and never finished. Thinking about it makes me feel a little queasy. However, it’s not uncommon in the writing world for authors of any stature, from novice to expert, to set aside works because they lack the knowledge, skill, or motivation to complete them. What follows is a collection of four books stopped by death.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer’s middle-English text is legendary for its moral prowess and enchanting tales. It also gives glimpses into the life and times of the medieval public, from the tops of the hierarchy to the lowliest lows. For instance, “The Knight’s Tale” harkens back to the Greco-Roman era and the tales the tales of chivalry and the lords and ladies, while “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” introduces readers to a woman’s role in feudal society and breaking free from the patriarchy through agency.
While it has many angles and stories, it is also an incomplete work. As stated by writer John Mullan for The Guardian: “There are 27 pilgrims described in the General Prologue, and each is supposed to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury, and two on the way back … Chaucer did not get a quarter of the way to his goal” (Mullan). Perhaps this was done intentionally. However, I actually love The Canterbury Tales for its vignette framework and always wanted more morality plays.
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
Another one of the four books stopped by death is by one of my favorite authors–Mark Twain. Twain was working on his final novel shortly before his death in 1910. It was a cobbling together of ideas and impressions about the norms and mores of man and religion that Twain might have held his whole life but that he definitely developed over the course of a decade while trying to write this book. Letters from the Earth, though posthumously released in 1962, gives us a glimpse into these themes through a variety of essays. Nevertheless, The Mysterious Stranger delved into these ideas with more clarity.
“Between 1897 and 1908, Twain wrote several versions of this book about Satan which addressed Twain’s views regarding the human race and his ideas concerning morals,” states Patricia Truslow. “Various titles were given to these attempts, but the subject was always reflective of Twain’s difficulty with understanding the creation and purpose of man.” No doubt, Twain wanted to complete the novel, but Halley’s Comet (as we mentioned in a previous post) came too soon, and Twain was whisked away into the afterlife before he ever completed it.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
It wasn’t until I really started digging deeper into Charles Dickens’ work that I realized just how much I love his stories, from his lively characters to his socioeconomic critiques. He just encapsulates that amount of satire and storytelling that I love. That’s why it makes me sad that Dickens has unfinished work out there by the title of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is just that—a mystery. Yet, Dickens only made it through half the novel before he died. Regardless of how incomplete the novel it, many have speculated as to how it ended. “Three months before his death Dickens sent a letter to the Queen (Victoria) to tell her ‘a little more of it in advance of her subjects,’” Bess Lovejoy writes. “She declined the offer, and now we’ll never know what he might have told her” (Medium).
The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
As a literary outcast after the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald wrote Hollywood scripts and believed himself to be a failed writer. In fact, even as he lay dying in his girlfriend’s apartment, he had no clue how influential he would become. As such, his contemporaries missed out on a novel Fitzgerald never finished: The Love of the Last Tycoon. Author Holly Pyne writes: “A thinly veiled account of movie mogul Irving Thalberg, Fitzgerald completed 17 of his proposed 31 chapters before he died in 1940.” Fitzgerald’s story is a sad one, and his stories mirror his real-life excesses. But, I suppose we can at least cherish the wonderful (and complete) works he left with us after his death.
Conclusion
Even though we will never read these books, there are a few takeaways. One, even though these are four books stopped by death, we can still enjoy the books written in their lifetimes. Two, we can speculate and enchant ourselves with our own interpretations of writer’s unfinished works. Just check the wikipedia page for Edwin Drood. We may not have more Canterbury Tales, but we can certainly reread the ones that are in existence.
Works Cited
Lovejoy, Bess. “10 Famous Authors and Their Unfinished Manuscripts.” Mentalfloss. Aug. 25, 2015. Web.
Mullan, John. “Ten of the best unfinished literary works.” The Guardian. Feb. 2010. Web.
Pyne, Holly. “!0 Unfinished Novels.” Shortlist. Feb. 2012. Web.
Truslow, Patricia. “The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain.” Bymarkttwain. Nov. 2013. Web.
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