A Few More Thoughts Regarding Lost Manuscripts#

Sometimes weird sorts of coincidences occur. A week or so ago I shared my thoughts about the Death of Lost Manuscripts. This week I ran across an article on the Saturday Evening Post that spoke to the topic of lost manuscripts but provided a different take and it’s one that has given me pause.

The article questioned the ethics of the posthumous publication of an author’s works. That article addressed two concerns. One I absolutely agree with and the other, well, I’m still on the fence.

Publishing Private Notes and Journals#

Part of the article discussed the posthumous publication of the author’s private notes and journals. For example, Joan Didion’s private journal documenting her mental health struggles and her experiences in undergoing therapy, certainly intended as a means for her to work through and reflect on her experiences, were never meant for public consumption. Yet, following her death her family chose to publish those private thoughts in Notes to John. Yes, those notes certainly provide greater insight into the writer’s thoughts, as many have argued. But they also expose parts of the author’s life and experiences that she had not intended to expose. If she had, she would have published them herself, I would suspect.

As the Post article describes, Sylvia Path’s husband chose to publish her private diaries that chronicled her mental health struggles as well as her struggles to fit into 1950’s society. These were her raw, unedited thoughts. While some saw the publication of those notes as painting a more complete picture of the woman, others saw a blatant invasion of her private inner life. I think all authors infuse, to some degree, their own experiences into their works. Plath did so in The Bell Jar. But does their decision to include snippets from their own experiences justify making all of their experiences public?

There is, I think, a line to be drawn between the personal and the public. As I mentioned in my earlier piece, I write far more than I publish. Much of my writing is to clarify my thinking, examine my state of mind, make sense of experiences, or just to capture something that was meaningful to me at the time. These writings may also allow me to work through frustrations, anger, disappointment and so on. Think in terms of writing that angry letter that you then burn, never intending that it be sent. These are all private musings that, while they may provide insight into what informs and shapes my world-view, are private; they are not intended for others to see. In fact, I rarely, if ever, revisit them. I’ve no need to as they served their purpose.

On this I absolutely agree with the Saturday Evening Post article: Private notes are just that and should not be made public, whatever their value might be, unless the author had specifically stated their intent that they be published.

Publishing Unfinished Works#

Didion and Plath, of course, are not alone. Hemingway, Nabokov, and others have all had works published posthumously. Some, for example, Nabokov’s The Enchanter and The Original of Laura, were published despite his specific instructions that his unfinished or unpublished works be destroyed following his death. Similarly, Franz Kafka left specific instructions that all his writings, letters, notes, etc be ‘burned unread’, yet both The Castle and The Trial, two of his most noted works, were published posthumously. And there lies my indecision.

On the one hand, I believe that the author should be the final arbiter of which of their works should be published. Like all artists, writers tend to hold themselves to high standards (this blog notwithstanding). Consequently, upon reviewing a particular work, even if fully finished and ready for publication, the author may decide that it simply doesn’t stand up to their standards. Perhaps they realized that it ultimately didn’t capture the author’s intent or just didn’t meet their standards for ‘good writing’. Where unfinished works are concerned, two more issues arise.

First, one must question why the work is unfinished. Is it because the author lost their way in the story and decided to abandon it? Was the story so completely revised that it was more appropriate to abandon that thread and move in a totally new direction? Or, was it unfinished because it was an early draft that the author was unable to complete and revise before their demise?

This, then, raises the second question about whether the quality of that draft stands up to the quality of the author’s prior works and their own high standards. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon appears to fall in this category as it is seen as his weakest novel.¹ Would you want made public that which did not paint you in the best light?

On the other hand …

As I noted in my earlier essay and as above, for some authors their best works appear to be those published following their deaths. A Confederacy of Dunces and Kafka’s works noted above are prime examples. Had those not been published even after their deaths we would have been deprived of the privilege to read those great works. In those cases, and many others, the posthumous publication of the author’s works allowed us to appreciate their works all the more.

And therein lies my quandary. I respect the author’s preferences to only publish that which meets their standards of which they approve. On the other hand, we would be missing some great literature had those books not been published.