New edition of 'A Farewell to Arms' publishes Hemingway's 47 alternate endings

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by issybird

I see the point of making discarded versions and manuscripts available for the interested, but when something is repackaged for commercial exploitation the motivation is greed and not aiding scholarly inquiry.

[issybird]

Oh, the irony! From A Moveable Feast:

the old rule that how good a book is should be judged by the man who writes it by the excellence of the material that he eliminates.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kennyc

WTF? I kinda hate this. Almost every book has been toiled over and scenes re-written, that doesn't mean they should ever see the light of day.

One book which today is normally printed with its (merely one) alternative ending is Dickens's "Great Expectations". Dickens's friend, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, considered that the ending was too sad, and persuaded him to rewrite it, but most modern critics feel that the original ending is more in keeping with the tone of the book. Almost all modern editions (including the version we have in the MR library) include the original ending as an appendix.

[QuantumIguana]

I don't see a problem with this. Last weekend, I went to the Minnesota History Center and saw an early draft of the Bill of Rights as well as two early drafts of the Minnesota State Constitution. If there was an early draft of the Mona Lisa, people would line up to see it. I don't see any difference between this and a book which has the draft endings for a book. It doesn't replace the ending that the author chose.

[Scott Nicholson]

To die. In the rain.

[LovesMacs]

It occurs to me that the most widely prevalent examples of this are Bibles, but these involve alternative readings or passages from various manuscripts rather than alternate endings.

[apbschmitz]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I don't see a problem with this. Last weekend, I went to the Minnesota History Center and saw an early draft of the Bill of Rights as well as two early drafts of the Minnesota State Constitution. If there was an early draft of the Mona Lisa, people would line up to see it. I don't see any difference between this and a book which has the draft endings for a book. It doesn't replace the ending that the author chose.

I'm with Iguana on this one. I can't imagine that anybody other than writers and scholars are genuinely interested. And maybe Hemingway himself is spinning in his grave. But from the writer point of view, to witness the ascended masters blundering around has the effect of humanizing them. I don't know what those 47 alternate endings look like, but I'd be encouraged if some of them were dumb. That would offer a shred of hope, regardless how self-delusional the thinking behind that might be.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by issybird

It smacks of the estate trying to wring every last dime out of its commodity, especially as his work is entering the public domain in some countries. Hemingway has never been prolific as since his death. His list of posthumous works:

(1964) A Moveable Feast
(1969) The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War
(1970) Islands in the Stream
(1972) The Nick Adams Stories
(1985) The Dangerous Summer
(1986) The Garden of Eden
(1987) The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway
(1999) True at First Light

I'll make an exception for A Moveable Feast (full disclosure: I'm reading it now), but the bulk is repackaged short stories and novels that took a LOT of editing to give them any coherence.

RIP, Papa!

Originally Posted by issybird

I see the point of making discarded versions and manuscripts available for the interested, but when something is repackaged for commercial exploitation the motivation is greed and not aiding scholarly inquiry.

Bingo!

I wouldn't have the slightest problem with pirating any book that is out of copyright that estates, and publishers decide to add or change something from the original and call it a new version so that they can get more money out of it!

If they feel they have the right to circumvent expiring copyright then I would have no problem with circumventing it either.

[QuantumIguana]

It's not circumventing copyright. The book with the original ending will enter the public domain eventually (barring extensions to copyright). It's just that if you want the version with the alternate endings, that will be under copyright. If readers believe that the alternate endings adds value, they will buy that version. otherwise, the will stick with the public domain version.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

It's not circumventing copyright. The book with the original ending will enter the public domain eventually (barring extensions to copyright). It's just that if you want the version with the alternate endings, that will be under copyright. If readers believe that the alternate endings adds value, they will buy that version. otherwise, the will stick with the public domain version.

Precisely. There are numerous scholarly editions of public domain books (eg the "Penguin Classics" series); the book's text is in the public domain, but the notes, introduction, appendices, etc, are not. To say that doing this is "circumventing copyright" is nonsense.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

It's not circumventing copyright. The book with the original ending will enter the public domain eventually (barring extensions to copyright). It's just that if you want the version with the alternate endings, that will be under copyright. If readers believe that the alternate endings adds value, they will buy that version. otherwise, the will stick with the public domain version.

Ahh, ok that's fine then. Thanks Quantum!

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

It's not circumventing copyright. The book with the original ending will enter the public domain eventually (barring extensions to copyright). It's just that if you want the version with the alternate endings, that will be under copyright. If readers believe that the alternate endings adds value, they will buy that version. otherwise, the will stick with the public domain version.

Why would the version with the alternate endings remain under copyright longer? Isn't the term still 70 years after the author's death?

[eskimo49]

It's annoying when this happens. Although not a book, some of the latest Agatha Christie tv programmes on ITV (UK) have altered the story, where the culprits are changed, and other stories are combined.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Why would the version with the alternate endings remain under copyright longer? Isn't the term still 70 years after the author's death?

For works published in the author's lifetime, yes. I haven't been able to find a clear answer on the subject, it looks as if for posthumous work, the copyright dates from the time of publication, rather than the time of the author's death.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Why would the version with the alternate endings remain under copyright longer? Isn't the term still 70 years after the author's death?

Yes, it is. It used to be the case that posthumous publication had different copyright rules, but not any more. The exception to this is the first publication of a work which would otherwise be in the public domain: in this circumstance, the initial publisher gets a 25-year, one-time only, copyright term; this is done to encourage new publication of posthumous works.