10 Unfinished Stephen King Novels (That He Should Definitely Finish)

Stephen King is one of the most popular and prolific writers in the history of popular fiction. Yet for as much as he has published, King also has a large number of "trunk" novels - unpublished, and generally unfinished works that have never and may never see the light of day. These are novels cast aside, largely forgotten, yet over the years their existence has been made public, either through excerpts leaking out to the fan community, or because they have been mentioned in various interviews.

These are the Holy Grail for King fans. While King may have had his reasons for giving up on them, a number sound like they'd be worth another look. And it's not entirely unlikely that one or two may finally see the light of day: two such works have been published in recent years, 2007's Blaze, put out under King's pen name Richard Bachman, and Under The Dome, which started life in the 70s as a novel entitled Under The Dome, then wound up re-written in the early 80s as The Cannibals, before finally being published under its original name in 2009.

So, knowing that King isn't entirely adverse to dusting off an old manuscript and tweaking it, what unfinished works should he give another chance? Here's a look at ten!

Perhaps the most complete of the unpublished works of Stephen King, Sword in the Darkness was actually submitted to twelve different publishing companies early in King's career, and rejected by all twelve. The plot reportedly surrounds an attempt by a gang of robbers to incite a riot so that they can commit a series of burglaries during the ensuing chaos. The protagonist is coping with the death of his mother and suicide of his pregnant sister; a secondary character turns out to be a black activist lawyer, who actually winds up inciting the riot after speaking at a local high school.

Keeping in mind the time in which it was written, it seems pretty interesting, however after the rejections, King considered it unpublishable, and determined it would never see the light of day. 

There is a copy, however, at the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine. However, any would-be reader requires King's personal permission to read the novel, which weighs in at 485 pages. Good luck.

Eventually an excerpt of the book was published in Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished, by Rocky Wood in 2006. That gave fans hope that eventually, like Blaze (Sword in the Darkness really feels like a Bachman novel), it would see the light of day. However, nothing more has been heard of the novel up to this point.