The list could be greatly extended - David Foster Wallace (The Pale King), Ralph Ellison (Juneteenth), Jane Austen (Sanditon), Robert Louis Stevenson (Weir of Hermiston), Norman Maclean (Young Men and Fire), Mervyn Peake (Titus Awakes), on and on and on. And then there's Malcolm Lowry, who didn't finish much but who has FIVE posthumous unfinished novels - October Ferry to Gebriola, Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, La Mordida, Swinging the Maelstrom, and In Ballast to the White Sea. That may be a record.
I've always wished Fitzgerald had lived long enough to complete THE LAST TYCOON and that Thomas Mann had lived long enough to complete THE CONFESSIONS OF FELIX KRULL. I think Mann lived long enough to finish it, but he just never felt the urge to return to it. As for Nabokov, wasn't his son lucky to get his father's permission "from beyond the grave" to override his express earthly wishes that all of his unfinished manuscripts be destroyed? Also, I'm very surprised that J. D. Salinger's heirs haven't started up the posthumous novel gravy train. It's been rumored that he had a vault full of finished work, but perhaps each page reads, "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy" multiple times.
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Hemingway left a large number of unfinished works (islands in the Stream, etc.), most of which (imo) were correctly left unfinished.
The list could be greatly extended - David Foster Wallace (The Pale King), Ralph Ellison (Juneteenth), Jane Austen (Sanditon), Robert Louis Stevenson (Weir of Hermiston), Norman Maclean (Young Men and Fire), Mervyn Peake (Titus Awakes), on and on and on. And then there's Malcolm Lowry, who didn't finish much but who has FIVE posthumous unfinished novels - October Ferry to Gebriola, Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, La Mordida, Swinging the Maelstrom, and In Ballast to the White Sea. That may be a record.
Sounds like Lowry might be the record holder, all right. Not a record to be envied, however.
I agree that the Hemingway titles should have stayed unpublished.
Jeff
I've always wished Fitzgerald had lived long enough to complete THE LAST TYCOON and that Thomas Mann had lived long enough to complete THE CONFESSIONS OF FELIX KRULL. I think Mann lived long enough to finish it, but he just never felt the urge to return to it. As for Nabokov, wasn't his son lucky to get his father's permission "from beyond the grave" to override his express earthly wishes that all of his unfinished manuscripts be destroyed? Also, I'm very surprised that J. D. Salinger's heirs haven't started up the posthumous novel gravy train. It's been rumored that he had a vault full of finished work, but perhaps each page reads, "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy" multiple times.
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