posted on 15 May 2023

The Greatest Books You’ll Never Read by Professor Bernard Richards

Even the very best authors include in their list of publications (and intended publications) a title that they planned to complete but failed to do so. Some because they died before they could finish their intended final masterpiece and some because they simply abandoned an idea they felt they couldn’t develop any further. But some uncompleted manuscripts come about because – often unbelievably – the author simply loses them and they never get recovered or the writer has a fit of pique and destroys what they’ve done before it sees the light of day.

Bernard Richards has taken a deep dive into the world of these unpublished or unfinished potential masterpieces and produced an entertaining and often eye-opening survey that explains what the author intended and what the fate of these unfinished works was. Many of these incomplete works do end up getting published – sometimes in their untouched original state and sometimes polished off by another author who takes on the job of channelling the spirit and intention of the original writer. But, of course, there are some lost books that have to remain lost and all we have to go on are notes or letters telling us what the great writer had planned before the manuscript went AWOL.

The book is structured chronologically by time periods and, to be honest, my focus was largely on 1900 – 1949 and 1950 – 1975 because these dates contain writers who I spend most of my time reading or collecting. One of the more famous examples of the lost manuscript is that of Ernest Hemingway’s Nick Adams Stories – his drafts of the very first short stories he wrote. The manuscripts, carbon copies and notes were all being carried to him by his wife, Hadley, who was travelling to meet him by train. The case that contained his papers was stolen from the train, never to be seen again – much to Hemingway’s evident distress:

“…All that remains of my complete works are three pencil drafts of a bum poem which was later scrapped, some correspondence between Jon McClure and me, and some journalistic cartoons. You, naturally, would say, ‘Good’ etc. But don’t say it to me. I ain’t yet reached that mood.”

Sometimes the issues are considerably more complicated. The case of Franz Kafka’s The Castle is a good example of the difficulties that unfinished drafts can pose a literary executor or editor. Kafka died of T.B. before he’d finished The Castle to his satisfaction and he was notoriously determined to never publish anything he felt was unfinished or substandard. In this spirit, he instructed Max Brod, his literary executor, to destroy the manuscript after his death – but Brod not only decided not to do this but to publish. Arguments about the rights and wrongs of this decision have raged ever since and still casts its shadow over what should be done with incomplete works once the author has died.

Obviously, a book like this doesn't try to resolve these conflicts but to simply give us a window through which to peer at what might have been.

You’ll find lots more examples to read for yourselves in this book and all of the entries are tightly written, relatively brief (three or four pages maximum) and accessibly presented. The book was first published in 2015 and may now be out-of-print but copies can be found on the second hand market for under £10.

 

Terry Potter

May 2023