Великите книги, които никога няма да прочетете

by Bernard Richards, Бърнард Ричардс, Павел Иванов (Translator)

Защо първият роман на Томас Харди си остава непубликуван? Какво се случва с ръкописа на дългоочаквания magnum opus на Труман Капоти? Защо Хайнрих Бьол изоставя „Изгубеният рай“ и как го преработва в други творби? Много от литературните загадки най-сетне намират отговор в този единствен по рода си пътеводител към света на изгубените, непубликувани или незавършени творби на знаменитите световни писатели.

Казват, че истинските литературни шедьоври всъщност винаги са незавършени. Не защото нямат финал, а защото не спират да вълнуват читателите и да ги провокират, защото вдъхновяват други автори да напишат своите творби и защото векове наред поколенията продължават диалога си с тях от нова гледна точка и с нови изразни средства.

„Великите книги, които никога няма да прочетете“ ще ви позволи на надникнете в главите на авторите и в хаоса на творческия им свят, ще осветли планираните, но останали нереализирани сюжетни развръзки, и ще ви разкрие неизвестни досега детайли за обстоятелствата, при които тези творби са останали незавършени.

Представени са близо шестдесет произведения на световно известни автори, между които и няколко български имена, като всяка творба е илюстрирана с ефектна корица, архивни снимки, страници от ръкописи, копия на първи издания и други артефакти.

Не на последно място, тази книга е истински подарък за библиофилите и за всички ценители на литературата.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Books About Books, Writing, Historical, Literary Criticism

254 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2015

Reviews

[Христо Блажев · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книга за книгите, дето ги няма: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/v...

Ще спомена само няколко от книгите, които са разгледани в книгата, за да добиете представа: ”Синдинтън” на Джейн Остин, роман на Карл Маркс – “Скорпион и Феликс”, ”Фарът” на Едгар Алън По, продължения на “Мъртви души” на Николай Гогол, ”Островът на кръста” на Хърман Мелвил, разбира се, “Загадката на Едуин Друд” на Чарлз Дикенс, ”Тайнственият непознат” на Марк Твен, ”Любовта на последния магнат” на Франсис Скот Фицджералд, ”Пудъл Спрингс” на Реймънд Чандлър, ”Къщата на улица Валю” на Стивън Кинг, ”Градът на фонтаните” на Майкъл Шейбон, автобиографичната “Принцът мекотело” на Хънтър С. Томпсън, ”Ако Господ беше жив днес” на Кърт Вонегът – и още, и още

Издателство "Милениум"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/v...

[Ivaelo Slavov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Това не е от Великите книги, но ми се щеше да е, от които нямаше да прочета.

Подобно на книгата за филмите, и тази дотягва доста бързо. И макар с филмите да изглежда, че съм по-щедър към оценка, то тази ми бе една идея по-интерсна. Но очаквах доста повече.
Накратко, почти всяка история имаше една и съща структура:
1. Автор започва да пише книга
2.Автор решава да се откаже или Живота решава да се откаже от автор
3.Преразказ на история, която автор искал напише - различна дължина в зависимост от завършеността на историята, или това колко автор приказвал за книга, която не искал пише.
4.Ще ли бъде завършена книга - Малко вероятно, защото тоз автор излиза, че бил уникален човек, и няма друг кат него.

Очаквам и книгата "Шахматните партии, които няма да изиграете" и вовеки няма да имам проблем с безсънието.

[Helen White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice book - great visuals especially. So lovely illustrations and pictures of book covers and notes made by authors. Some of the books you're likely never to have heard of whereas others such as Sandition and Edwin Drood you probably have. Interesting as it also includes some books I never realised were unfinished or unpublished.

[Ренета Кирова · Rating 3 out of 5]

Четиво от справочен характер, в което са събрани книгите, които никога няма да бъдат завършени от древността до днес. Преразказани са сюжетите им и са посочени причините, поради които не могат да бъдат пренаписани и издадени. Има и любопитни факти около авторите и техните произведения. Книгата е подплатена със снимки, портрети, факсимилета.
Не ми хареса ситния шрифт, форматът на книгата е достатъчно голям, но текста беше сбит, събран в едната половина на страницата, а любопитните факти бяха обградени и с още по-ситно напечатани букви. Изморих очите си от четене.
Книгата може да се ползва само като справочна литература, защото авторът описва суховато фактите, без да се старае да ги направи по-интересни за четене. Имаше включени и двама български автори с незавършени произведения.

[Truly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Setelah To Kill a Mockingbird, ternyata Harper Lee mulai menyusun buku baru, The Long Goodbye. Sayang kisah tersebut tidak diselesaikan. Selain Harper Lee ada juga J.R.R Tolkien, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens dan mashing banyak nama yang muncul.

Buku ini memuat tentang karya penulis terkenal yang tidak diterbitkan. Banyak hal yang membuat sebuah Karya tidak bisa diterbitkan. Meski pun penulisnya cukup terkenal, salah satunya adalah karya tersebut tidak selesai ditulis. Atau tidak selesai (atau bahkan tidak) diedit sesuai saran penerbit

Secara garis besar buku ini terbagi menjadi beberapa periode, mengikuti saman penulisan. Mulai sebelum tahun 1750, 1750-1849, 1850-1899, 1900-1949, 1950-1975, 1976 hingga saat ini. Perlu diingat, buku ini terbit tahun 2015.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depressing to think there are so many books that I will never read. Most of the books here are quite obscure and unknown. Interesting though to read about these books by authors we all know.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting biographical notes - and lots of books that I thought were 'finished' but are not.

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I look at certain books in my bookshelves, and they take me back to certain places. I remember reading Dead Souls the day I shadowed my high school in the 8th grade, my eyes staying on pages I'd already read because I was too nervous to look up and talk to someone. I remember reading Gone with the Wind and being completely engrossed in when we drove to Florida my sophomore year, my cousin in the backseat next to me singing along to the radio. I look at Greatest Books You'll Never Read, and I'm transported back to Shakespeare and Co. in Paris, where I purchased it when I was there in July. What has happened and continues to happen in France is breaking my heart because I watched the news the night everything was unfolding, and it hurt to think of the bright, beautiful, buzzing city I had just visited damaged by terrorism. Not Paris, I kept telling my mom, this can't happen in Paris. It hurt me, and I was only there three days. I can only imagine how much this has hurt Parisians and all of France. My thoughts and prayers continue to be with the people of France. Je t'adore!

Sorry for the tangent! I just can't review this book without talking about Paris. It just doesn't feel right. Okay, onto the review. I really like the idea of unfinished books. There's something very mysterious and alluring about a book that will never be finished to a bibliophile. We can never have it, and so we want it more. There's a reason Go Set a Watchman was on everyone's to-read list ten minutes after it was announced. We grab at what we can, piecing together chapters of books that were unfinished or unedited. Sometimes someone finishes them for us (see Jane Austen's Sandition). So many great writers leave behind unfinished books when they die or scrap early projects or drafts. I was familiar with a few of these, but I was pleasantly surprised with the diversity of the selections here. It went from Ancient Greeks to the modern era. I actually learned a lot about different areas of literature. It was a bit dry, but I feel like this is a book aimed at a very specific audience who will appreciate that. I had to power through this book a little bit, but then again I was sitting in a cafe in the beautiful city of Nice in the south of France eating the best chocolate mousse possibly ever made so it might've been hard to concentrate. I can already hear the sad songs you guys are going to play for me with the world's smallest violin over that. And to those of you who might say that I talk about my trip to France way too much in my reviews, I would say: DUH! I don't think I'll ever stop talking about it. I still can't believe I got to go.

End of second tangent. Highly recommended for anyone who loves books, the history of them, and a little bit of mystery.

[Warren-Newport Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Greatest Books You'll Never Read is a glossy, colorful, entertaining compilation of the stories behind literary works by major authors that remain either unfinished and unpublished or published in an incomplete form. Some of these works, like such as Stephen King's early novel The House on Value Street, were simply abandoned, and others, such as Christopher Marlowe's epic poem "Hero and Leander" were not finished due to the untimely death of the author. Herman Melville's elusive "The Isle of the Cross" may have been a novel, or a short story, or perhaps it never existed at all. Elements of John Updike's early coming-of-age novel Willow appear in his later works, but the only surviving manuscript is under lock and key until October 1, 2029.

Some of these orphaned works may eventually see the light of day, and others are lost forever. In each case the contributors to this volume ask themselves how likely it would be that the missing parts of the work will be found, or perhaps reconstructed by another writer. In almost every case the answer is: don't hold your breath. This may be a loss for scholars, but not for the reading public as a whole. These days, few readers are clamoring for more stanzas of The Faerie Queene.

Each brief chapter is written by one of several contributors, and is illustrated by an artfully rendered proposed cover for the work in question. I read this book straight through from beginning to end, but it would be a good choice for casual browsing as well. (Amy B.)

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't think much of this book because its subtitle is incredibly inaccurate - many of the books listed can be read in whole or in part including, amongst many examples I could choose in the book, 'Fire in the Blood' by Irene Nemirovsky; 'Le Mont Analogue' by Rene Daumal; or 'Le Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumont' by Roger Martin du Gard all not 'finished' in the technical sense because the author died be fore completion but all available to read and all very readable. The same could be said of other works which while not finished, such as Heinrich Boll's 'Verlorenes Paradies' are available abandoned works that are available amongst the authors short story collections. Then there are books we can glad we can't read such as Michael Chabon's 'Fountain City' or Stephen King's 'The House on Value Street' while books like Vladimir Nabokov's 'The Original of Laura' is very much available to read, unfinished, though we might wish it wasn't.

So this definitely isn't a collection of unpublished masterpieces we'll never get to read - in fact the masterpieces that we won't get to read that are not mentioned are all those works that we will never read such as the half-a-dozen to a dozen folders of unpublished material by Isaac Babel seized from his apartment when he was arrested; or the several volumes of Solzhenitsyn's diaries seized when he was arrested were, we know, burnt at the time or shortly after they were confiscated.

This is a frustrating and disappointing book which I wouldn't recommend reading.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice book for people who love books. I didn't read everything in it, but I noted that it had many books I never heard of, plus a few I've read including The Canterbury Tales and the Nick Adams Stories as well as the poem Kubla Khan. It's fun to look at and see authors you know and the titles of books they've written that, in some cases were never finished. If you're digging to know more about the failures of some of your favorite authors, this might be interesting to you. And it might be a source of comfort if not encouragement if you're having a hard time completing a writing project, to know that Hemingway lost a novel and some short stories when his suitcase was stolen, and that Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan was never finished because someone knocked on his door and interrupted his writing for an hour, and the poem was gone forever when he resumed trying to finish it. The moral of the story is; Be careful when you interrupt a writer.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat misleading subtitle, for many of the titles discussed have indeed been published, though some of them have not been finished, including In Search of Lost Time, for instance, and The Canterbury Tales, and The Faerie Queen. All in all, an interesting enough list, with the inclusion of some rather obscure authors and titles that sounded interesting. A book worth keeping around for future reference.
Read as bedtime reading, for which it was ideal. Short essays of 2 to 4 pages on each book, from a variety of authors, but edited to be consistent in tone.
I will remember that the editor often had to stretch quite a bit to consider books as either unfinished (where else can "Kubla Khan" go?) or unpublished (see above titles).

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting tour through the lives and afterlives of unfinished works, accompanied by excellent imaginings of what their covers might look like today. However, it was not an entirely smooth ride: some of the sidebars had pretty dubious relevance, and some of the entries had the feeling of a haughty academic condescending to the public (with all the bitter sass and embarrassing overstatement/oversimplification you might expect there). Still, the experience of being able to compare the treatment of so many unfinished works side by side was enjoyable.

[Pablo María Fernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo encontré en mesa de saldos de Villa Gesell a AR$6.000 (unos 4 dólares). Me parece un gran hallazgo porque descubrí no solo varias obras que desconocía, sino que al hacer la recorrida va iluminando a los autores y a sus libros más conocidos desde una perspectiva bastante original. Me sirvió para repasar autores que leí o que conozco más lateralmente como Geoffrey Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe, Lord Byron o Honoré de Balzac. Y para profundizar de los que leí obra completa o varios de sus libros como Franz Kafka, Kurt Vonnegut o Edgar Alan Poe. Es un formato que me recordó algunos canales de YouTube como Retrologando en los que alguien muy versado en un tema te contagia con su entusiasmo y de hecho cada capítulo está escrito por un especialista en el autor de la obra analizada.

Puede acusarse al editor Richards de que la selección es bastante ecléctica: hay obras que fueron publicadas parcialmente, otras modificadas por otras manos, y están las que ni siquiera llegaron a ver la luz por lo que contradicen el subtítulo del libro Obras maestras inéditas de escritores célebres que termina siendo contradictorio. Pero dejando de lado esa inconsistencia es una experiencia fascinante, con tapas muy logradas diseñadas especialmente por artistas y fotos e ilustraciones con recuadros llenos de información complementaria. Las secciones ¿Qué sucedió después? y ¿Qué sucederá alguna vez? al final de cada obra resultan forzadas y mayormente repetitivas (siempre insisten en lo difícil de reproducir el estilo, la temática y las particularidades del autor y su época, algo que todos sabíamos desde un principio). Las biografías son medio pobres y anecdóticas pero en cambio el detalle de las adaptaciones a teatro, cine y televisión de las obras me parece que aportan mucho. El criterio para ordenar las obras es cronológico: siento que hubiese sido mucho más interesante agruparlos por motivo por el cual no vieron la luz o lo hicieron parcialmente: los perdidos, los reescritos, los inconclusos y así.

En resumen, es un excelente libro para tener en la mesa ratona del living porque se puede ojear por su contenido visual y también abrir como si fuera el I-ching para encontrar nuevas lecturas originales de todas las épocas.

[Timbrr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm cheating a bit by rating this book with 3 stars, as I usually tend to rate books based solely on how well I enjoyed them, rather than merit in other areas.
I did not get a lot out of this book because I'm not one into deep literature or literary history. Going through my reading stats, I have no books read that were written earlier than 1950, basically. I simply don't have much of an interest in books written too far before me, for whatever reason. So, naturally, I didn't really have a frame of reference for many of the authors talked about in this book, let alone the works they did that never saw the light of day.
Having said that, for those who /are/ interested in that sort of thing, I imagine that this could be a very interesting and possibly enlightening read. So, 3 stars it is.
And honestly what was relevant to me was interesting to read about, so there's that. I didn't exactly get any reading recommendations (part of why I picked it up) but it was still worth checking out, I'd say.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustan los libros que hablan de libros. Disfruto sobremanera la lectura que me lleva de la mano por bibliotecas, autores, historias, librerías, coleccionistas, colecciones, formatos, creación. Todo lo que tenga que ver con los libros parte, en mis manos, con la ventaja de un placer anticipado. Este Los grandes libros que jamás leerás tiene algunas virtudes que lo hacen atractivo, como son las portadas, los nexos con temas relacionados (pintura, cine, historia), las hipótesis de publicación, etc. Creo que, si se hubiesen atenido solo a los textos descriptivos, Los grandes libros... sería difícil de leer completo, pero así, con la variedad que le imprimen los añadidos, se convierte en una interesante lectura.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not about great works of literature that you'll likely never read, but books that were never finished/published by their authors, whether by being abandoned or (often) through passing away. Some of the books have been finished by other authors, but it can only be speculated what direction the original author was going to take. Each book is talked about to some extent as well as the author and circumstances surrounding the book. I finishes with the likelihood that someone will pick up the torch and complete it. It covers a from BCE to modern times.

[Lisa Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had several issues with this book. Several of the books the author included were actually published; he just thought they should have been different. And there was way too much speculation throughout.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so brilliant and really interesting. Highly recommended.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected more from this book. It was interesting in parts. Some of it was his interpretation of the author's writing.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Educational and fun.

[Sarah Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Professor Bernard Richards has put together a fascinating list of various unpublished, unfinished and original versions of books and manuscripts from famous authors. One must remember of course that there are often good reasons why something has not been published (I refer to Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" as a case in point), but there are some pieces in there which I feel deserve a look. Sadly, due to my lack of time and financial resources I doubt that I will ever be able to secure copies of the texts I am interested in, and suspect that they will remain forever on my "never read" list. Interesting enough.

Not sure why this book has Erica Jarnes as author when my copy has Professor Bernard Richards listed, but the cover is the same. Maybe it is a compilation.

[Mark O'Neill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is nicely presented, intriguing and good to dip into, though its forays into literary criticism can be baffling. Vladimir Nabokov is dismissed as a ‘foreigner’ who wrote with ‘stumbling naïve incompetence’. If you say so, Prof.

[Linda]

LJ
This is a good reference - a bit thick to read straight through. Best taken in nibbles.