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Comment by devindotcom | Hacker News Reader

This sort of thing is always tough. Sometimes estates truly do the opposite of an author's intent, such as with Tolkien's Beowulf. I believe it's on record that he never wanted it published.

It's not so clear cut here; Steinbeck submitted it for publishing, got rejected, then seemingly spent years improving his art and produced his major works.

I certainly don't blame him for not wanting to throw a werewolf murder mystery out there after being recognized for what he must consider his "real" work. But it was commonplace to destroy unwanted manuscripts or simply to say, don't publish it, or destroy it when I die, etc, and he didn't. To me it seems like license to print, as long as the context is explained in a good introduction. Scholars of the American novel will go nuts for it.

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The idea behind copyright itself is a give-and-take for society's benefit (it is good to give authors rights to their works to encourage publication, it is good to give the rights to the people at some point in exchange).

Tolkien's is an interesting case, for with the Silmarillion he obviously wanted to publish it (he considered it a much better work than the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings) but he also could never get it completed. His son took over and did his best to compile it. I suspect his Beowulf was similar - he did not feel it was up to his standards.

At some point after death, and with due consideration to the heirs and others, I think the historical value of these things outweighs the personal.

It certainly is a more complex issue than some commenters are making it out to be. I think these things need to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. I think both the intent of the author and the manner of presentation are important. With the Silmarillion and other Tolkien works they usually make it abundantly clear that it's not a finished work.

As a counterexample, there was the Xscape album from Michael Jackson where they took decades-old demos, had producers make them sound like modern songs, and put his face and name on the cover like it was just a new album. (also the songs mostly suck) That seems like it benefits no one besides Sony.

Honestly that and "Michael" would have been better off as the original demos. I found "Behind the Mask" particularly interesting since that's the original version of the song as most people know it. (Also it's a cracking song and Jackson's contributions enhance it.)

This makes me think of the Bukowski poems that were modified by his editor. It's now possible to read the originals compared to the edited versions and see the originals were vastly different and better.

article: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/bukowksis-poems-wer...

It's not so much that Tolkien explicitly didn't want his Beowulf published, as that it's one of the many, many works that he started and was never satisfied with.

Note that that category includes the Silmarillion, which was cobbled together by his son Christopher. And Christopher rarely chose his father's latest efforts, preferring instead versions more compatible with the published Lord of the Rings.

Christopher was chosen by his father for the job of literary executor. It's arguable whether JRR Tolkien really wanted him to publish every scrap the way he did, but they do form an extraordinary documentation of the extraordinary process of Tolkien's imagination.

His Beowulf could be tinkered with forever because it's not really a translation. It's a hook on which to hang a lengthy series of scholarly footnotes, discussing almost every single word of the original.

If you want to read Beowulf in translation, pick any other version. (I adore Maria Dahvana Headley's hilarious, insightful new version.) If you want to read Beowulf in the original, and want an exhaustive discussion of how it works, pick Tolkien's book -- which also includes a helpful prose gloss.

It may be worth noting that William Faulkner wrote a murder mystery and threw a fit when he didn't win the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine short story award. Steinbeck might not have felt that he was above genre fiction, but perhaps he thought the addition of a werewolf was a bridge too far.

> What a commentary. In France I am the father of a literary movement. In Europe I am considered the best modern American, and among the first of all writers. In America, I eke out a hack's motion picture wages by winning second prize in a manufactured mystery story contest

http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2012/05/faulkner-vs-well...

I read Faulkner's story and honestly the ending wasn't as satisfying as he might have thought. Wellman's story was probably better as a "murder mystery" even if the writing perhaps lacked some of Faulkner's polish. I thought some of Faulkner's other mysteries were better

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_Gambit

> Steinbeck might not have felt that he was above genre fiction

At the time he would have written it, he was quite hungry. Living off of income from manual labor with some extra contributions from his father. Perhaps he thought a warewolf mystery could sell a few books at the time, but as you suggest, later on that would've been embarrassing.

Wellman was one of the greats of pulp fiction (especially the Weird subgenre, on which he was a lasting influence), so it's not terribly surprising that he could wrangle a mystery story more effectively than a literary writer.

Can you recommend some Faulkner mysteries? I loved his style and the world he built and could always go for more.

>In America, I eke out a hack's motion picture wages by winning second prize in a manufactured mystery story contest

Makes me think of how Stephen King wrote some novels as Richard Bachman and then with King's name on them, they sold ten times as many.

Also, allegedly J K Rowling wrote a crime novel as Robert Galbraith which sold only 1500 copies.

(Before selling several orders of magnitude more when the pseudonym was linked to her.)

There might be the confounding factor of being unlikely to buy a novel you don't know exists. If Rowling releases something under her own name, I'm sure to hear about it, which will surely boost sales.

Although perhaps this was exactly what you meant.

This from the same guy that took his first draft of grapes of wrath and burned it in the backyard.

If he really wanted it destroyed, he definitely had experience.

> on record that he never wanted it published

One can control one's estate while alive. Once dead, the estate belongs to others, one's intent no longer incurs any obligation for others to adhere to.

If someone never wants their manuscripts published, they should destroy them while they are alive.

P.S. It took me a long time to get over the desire to please my father in what I did with his estate. You can't please dead people.

>"Once dead, the estate belongs to others, one's intent no longer incurs any obligation for others to adhere to."

Then why are wills permitted and enforced?

I'd agree that the only way to guarantee something is not published is to destroy it. One need look no further than the Barnes Foundation to see that executors can go astray; but that doesn't make it right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Foundation

>Then why are wills permitted and enforced?

Wills are for the living, not the dead. It is a coordination mechanism to reduce conflict between heirs. It obviously doesn't function perfectly, but otherwise every death would result in legal battles, or, as has been the case for most of recorded history, physical violence.

Also note there are significant legal restrictions on wills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities

> Then why are wills permitted and enforced?

Wills distribute the estate. Once it's distributed, the new owners can do what they want with it.

> Barnes Foundation

"to be honored in perpetuity after his death"

Such things should not be legally binding. What can justify a person controlling their estate a year after death, a century, a millennium? It's absurd.

> "to be honored in perpetuity after his death"

> Such things should not be legally binding.

They aren't. They never have been, and they never will be, since it's impossible to enforce something forever.

As an interesting tangent, England and Portugal have a permanent Treaty, (inherited by the UK), and which is still in force 700 years later.

If it wouldn't be for Max Brod[1], who ignored Franz Kafkas last request, we wouldn't be reading much of Kafkas work today.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#Max_Brod

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