… and other unfinished works.
Poe’s Story.
While recovering from cholera in the summer of 1849, Edgar Allan Poe resolved to put his chaotic life in order. He quit drinking, made plans to marry his childhood sweetheart, began raising money for a literary magazine, and started work on a story that would become known as “The Lighthouse.”
A few months later, his magazine unrealized and his story unfinished, he died in a hospital ward reserved for patients suffering from the effects of alcohol.
“The Lighthouse,” generally regarded as the master’s last work of fiction, wound up in the hands of Poe’s self-proclaimed literary executor Rufus Wilmot Griswold and remained unpublished for sixty years.
In Defense of Unfinished Works.
Poe’s “The Lighthouse” is one of many works that great writers didn’t live to finish. Other titles include the book-length follow-up to Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog, Truman Capote’s magnum opus Answered Prayers, and Mark Twain’s dark fantasy novel The Mysterious Stranger.
Many of these eventually found their way into print in one form or another, with a fragment of Ellison’s novel appearing in the 1981 issue of Amazing Stories (where you’ll also find one of my early stories) and in a 2018 compilation from Subterranean Press titled Blood’s a Rover.
Posthumous Collaborations.
Sometimes, living writers take on the task of finishing such tales.
“The Lighthouse” is one example, having generated multiple short stories and at least one film inspired by Poe’s four-page fragment. And although such efforts are more the work of the living than the dead, they are nevertheless sincere efforts to resurrect and pay homage to the spirit of their sources.
But recently, I’ve become aware of a more problematic way of completing the work of past masters, and you can read about it in my new essay “Last Words: In Defense of Unfinished Works,” which I have excerpted above and which you can find in its entirety in the latest edition of the British publication Dissections: The Journal of Contemporary Horror. Access to the journal is free. No ads. No string attached. You can find the publication here.
Check it out, and if you have any unfinished works or cross-time collaborations to recommend, please consider doing so in a comment to this post. Also, if you have any thoughts on the handling of posthumous works, I’d love to hear your opinion.
The comment box is open.
New Comments on a Previous Post.
Speaking of comments, exactly one year ago, I ran a piece on what I consider to be the Holy Grail of home entertainment: a beautifully mastered Blu-ray of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth (1972).
Previously available only on DVD and substandard pirated transfers, the Spanish Blu-Ray has the film looking as good (if not better) than it did upon its initial release. (Trust me. I was there.)
If you missed the post when it first appeared on The 21st-Century Scop, you can still find it here. Either way, you might want to check out the latest comments, which include some titles that should make for a fun double feature.
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