Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.
The rules are simple:
Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post. Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists. Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.
This week’s topic is Last Ten Books I Abandoned. Fortunately, it’s rare I abandon a book but, when I do, it’s because I really wasn’t enjoying it and/or found the writing poor. In either case, I choose not to publish a review on my blog or talk about how I didn’t enjoy it; I just move on to the next book. So I decided to focus on books unfinished by their authors because, sadly, they didn’t live long enough to complete them.
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky – the author had just completed the first two of a planned sequence of five novels when in July 1942 she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where she died.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens – only six of the planned twelve instalments had been published before he died.
Miss Marley by Vanessa Lafaye – unfinished at the point of her untimely death, it was completed by her friend and fellow author, Rebecca Mascull
Sanditon by Jane Austen – only eleven chapters had been completed when she died in 1817
Castle Dor by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch – completed after his death by Daphne du Maurier at the request of Q’s daughter
The Long Traverse (or Lake of Gold) by John Buchan – the author had started writing it in 1938 but it was unfinished at his death in February 1940. His wife, Susan, added an epilogue and the book was published in 1941.
The Black Prince by Anthony Burgess – completed by Adam Roberts based on Burgess’s preparatory notes
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell – the remaining instalments still to be published in the Cornhill Magazine at the time of her death were completed by journalist Frederick Greenwood
Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft – uncompleted when she died, a few days after giving birth to the daughter who would be Mary Shelley.
Hey, I hear you say, there are only nine books in your list. Yes, it’s unfinished by its author….
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