I am the Bob, I speak for the drafts.
Don’t publish us and let our creator’s memory be, perhaps.
There is a trend right now with authors that have long since fallen off of the radar coming out with new material. Earlier this week it was announced that an unpublished manuscript, complete with illustrations, has been found and that a new Dr. Seuss book will be coming out: “What Pet Should I Get?”
This release will be on the heels of one-hit wonder Harper Lee, announcing her new novel that is taken from a forgotten manuscript. Lee is an author I had presumed was dead like all of the other authors of books I have read for English classes (with few exceptions).
Perhaps Lee wasn’t dead, but having only published one novel, her career seemed to be. A comparison can be made to Bob Dylan, who is alive but chooses not to record songs he wrote a very long time ago. He is not dead, but his career certainly is.
In the latest edition of the basement tapes, artists came together and sang Dylan’s lost songs for him even though he is still touring. There is a similar sense with Seuss’ manuscript, only instead of modern artists, there are modern publishers who want to publish it. If he had wanted it published, he would have done so himself whilst he was still alive.
We all have pieces of work that we want to be known for and some that we aren’t particularly proud of.
Although it is a form of self-censorship to omit these works from the public eye, in my mind they are doing the author a disservice in keeping them here.
As for Harper Lee publishing her forgotten manuscript? It seems awfully lazy to wait around so long before publishing the book, even if it was your publisher’s fault.
At least Dylan and Seuss have more than one hit. Being famous for only one thing you did a long time ago in Lee’s case a recipe for not living up to the hype. It’s like putting 5th grade spelling bee winner on a college application. It may have mattered then, but it hardly matters now.
So please Random House,
Don’t grab for cash this time.
Put the manuscripts in a museum
for others to find.
