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So far I am enjoying Madden’s completion of Drood but it may not be to everyone’s taste.
I was thinking about the parallels of the novel with Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. Like Dickens Fitzgerald was writing at the peak of his powers and like him he died suddenly part way through the book. The reader is a bit luckier in Fitzgerald’s case as he did leave a fairly thorough summary of the plot and included a significant number of notes about what had been done.
Jane Austen left two incomplete novels: The Watson’s and Sanditon. In the case of the first, it seems that Austen simply got bored with the project and turned to other things. At the request of her relatives she did outline how the book was going to continue. Thus many of the completions have a reasonable basis from which to work. Sanditon is a very different case. It was begun in the last year of Austen’s life and she had to abandon it owing to her illness. What we have would seem to indicate that it was going to be a lighter work than Persuasion. There are several completions available for those who desire it.
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