Books which, for a variety of reasons, were never completed by their respective authors.
Which ones do you know, and which are the best ones?
Books which, for a variety of reasons, were never completed by their respective authors.
Which ones do you know, and which are the best ones?
I can think of three, but since I have not read them, I'll wait and see if anyone else mentions them. One book that was possibly not even started was Flashman's adventures in the American Civil War. It was hinted in the other Flashman books that he fought (or cowered) for both sides. Unfortunately George MacDonald Fraser died before writing it, like I worried he might do because he was getting old. I was annoyed about that, because having hinted at it, I wanted to read it. The last Flashman book he wrote was Flashman and the Tiger, which was a collection of short stories and not his best work imo.
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
Charles Dickens, by George Orwell
A book that was not even started, that sounds pretty interesting ^^Originally Posted by kev67
Thank you very much
Canterbury Tales ~ Chaucer
Dead Souls ~ Gogol
The Trial ~ Kafka
Also The Castle by Kafka.
Gogol- Dead Souls no doubt
"Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable."- George Bernard Shaw
Maybe it's not unfinished in the real meaning of the word, but without Proust's early death the last 3 or 4 (I don't remember) parts of La Recherche would have a lot more pages.
And it is really a pity that Gogol couldn't finish his Dead Souls - great book!
Was The Trial by Kafka unfinished? I seem to think it was. The Castle stops mid-sentence. Great great novel.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens was never finished, but can't say how good it is.
Patrick O'Brian's last Maturin-Aubrey adventure, which has been titled The Final, Unfinished Journey of Jack Aubrey. My father read it and thought it was good. I liked to think this was the adventure when their luck finally ran out, but my dad said this wasn't how the story was progressing. If they did sink with all hands then it was particularly unfortunate because I think he said Aubrey and Maturin had their families with them.
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace is described as incomplete, but still brilliant according to the reviews.
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
Charles Dickens, by George Orwell
Yea. Kafka managed to write the ending, but it was still an unfinished book. As for The Castle, according to Max Brod, Kafka already had the ending in his mind, but never managed to put it down. However the concept of "finished" is relative in Kafka, not absolute.
The only unfinished novel I've read is A Death in the Family by James Agee. I read it some thirty years back, and it was very good, I remember.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Destined by P.C and Kristen Cast is the 9th of House of Night series, even with its nineth sequel the chronicle is far from completion and is unfinished.
Weir of Hermiston
I can think of two:
1) Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. The existing part is just promised as the first part of a longer (3-part?) work.
2) The work now called Dream of Red Chambers presumably by Cao Xueqin. The first original author (disputed as to who it really was) only finished the first 80 chapters which was clearly not complete as intended.
It's wonderful, well up to the standard of his best finished novels.
I just borrowed "The Weir of Hermiston" by R.L. Stevenson from the library, many consider it his best work, given the excellence of his finished works it should be good...
Both these novels were unfinished due to the untimely demise of their great authors when they were at the height of their powers.
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