Column Chronicles: Books gone wrong by famous authors, part one

Books gone wrong by famous authors, part one

Frank Cotolo
November 7, 2019

Just because authors have become famous through the eons does not mean they produced only fine works. The truth is that many a famous novelist has been the creator of a true stinker, many of which were never finished. What follows are long lost remnants of books by famous authors that never saw the light of day.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, sick of his Sherlock Holmes character, killed him in one story but had to bring him back soon after by popular demand. During the interim he began a book intending to alter his personality as a writer. Here is as far as that book got in its creation:

"There was no reason whatsoever why my pancreas should be threatened by a loved one. It belongs to me and I am going to learn more about it, even as it decays, because it is never too late to learn something..."

Jules Verne took a shot at comedy once but only got this far:

"I want to place banana peels on the sidewalks of London, at every corner, and watch the flowing falls of those slipping and sliding. True, I may feel terrible when one of them splits a skull, but also true is that I will not be the only person laughing up a lung as it happens."

Jane Austin had a unique style and yet she attempted to stray from the successful formula once. She wrote but never completed a novel unlike anything she was expected to produce.

"Situated between the bedpost and the large pile of coal Ferguson had in his sleep quarters was a garden tool that haunted him. He would lie beneath the sheets of his bed and hope it disappeared. Instead, he would hear it speaking to him, asking him to pick it up and tend to the garden with care and love. Echoes of the tool's voice kept Ferguson up for hours each night and sometimes he came near the point of surrender and would pull off the sheets to directly confront the object. He would sweat profusely and talk back to it, saying he could not be a good gardener but he would try if only the tool would stop bothering him. Yet, deep inside some dark cavern of his mind, Ferguson was battling the idea that fate, not the garden tool, was speaking to him and he was fighting a calling to turn the dirt and plant the seed and water that which God would help him create from the ground up..."

...to be continued.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.