Thomas Hardy, in Return of the Native, added the epilogue about Clym Yeobright becoming a preacher - I think it was in response to his public wanting to end on a more upbeat note than the drowning of Eustacia and her lover. Personally, I think the Epilogue is redundant and pointless. A lot of these works were serialised for newspapers and journals, of course - I think this novel was one.

John Fowles, in The French Lieutenant's Woman gives 2, alternate endings. Not sure why.

Dido

The Silver Crown by Robert C O'Brien, which I read in 6th grade, was my favorite book for years. It was re-released a few years ago and had two endings, one for the British audience which was supposedly more open-ended (the ending, not the British) and a second, "tie up all the loose ends," conclusion geared to American readers. What is the point? I really don't know.

Interesting topic. Its one of my pet peeves when endings a book changes when the book becomes a movie - usually not for the better. I can't recall off hand what books have done this. I wished that Captain Corellis Mandolin had been changed - one of the worst endings in an otherwise excellent read I ever encountered.

I think it depends on the author, there are probably lots of reasons why they do it. I think that is why Rowling made the ending she did because she is worried that other authors might try to make sequels. Also, too Margaret Mitchell would probably have wished she had written her ending different if she had known someone would write such terrible sequels.

John Fowles redid The Magus, but I found the first book so strange that I haven't had any interest in trying the second. One of my English professors said in class once, "What does it all mean, John?"

The movie producers changed the ending of The Shining to keep it from getting, I think, an X rating because it was going to be too scary.

Dickens published NICHOLAS NICKELBY serially, and it was wildly popular -- so popular that a couple people wrote the endings and published them as the 'real' ending. So Dickens had to rewrite and change the ending to be different from the fake ones.

It is very common that editors come through and insist on a different ending, fearing that a sad or controversial ending will turn the readers off. Robert Heinlein had to rewrite the ending of PODKAYNE OF MARS to editorial order -- originally the narrator heroine died. In the published version she's in hospital and her brother finishes the story.

Brenda

Brenda, I never knew that about Podkayne of Mars. I loved that story when I read it years ago when I was in high school, and thought it was pretty sad as it was. The reader isn't really sure she will recover. I suppose the editor wanted a more hopeful ending because it was part of Heinlein's juvenile series.

Rosefolly

The French Lieutenant's Woman has two endings, which always intruigued me. The link I added is for a book based on old-time adventure novels with a serial-type structure, such as Dickens used, to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Many twists and turns in the novel ("SILVER"), and as one reviewer put it an O'Henry ending.

Here is a link that might be useful: silverpirate

Another famous one is AK by Peter Dickinson, a young adult novel about an imaginary African nation which won a number of awards. There are 2 endings -- the happy one is when the young hero of the nation chose to work for peace, and is now the George Washington of his prosperous country. The other one is when he clung to his AK-47, and the country is a war-torn hellhole.

Brenda

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde offers an alternate English reality in which texts are living things that must be protected from interference. Jane Eyre is kidnapped from her book, allowing the officer assigned to her case to provide her a more satisfying ending than Bronte supposedly wrote in the "original."

It's all very complicated and amusing -- interesting concept.

Oh, The Eyre Affair sounding interesting. I'll have to look in to it.

In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently is the person from Porlock who interrupts Coleridge when he was writing Kubla Khan, thereby preventing him from completing the poem.

Thanks for the replies! More would be great :)

There are a number of time-travel novels where, by the action of the characters, the -beginning- of the story is changed. A great example of this would be TIME AND AGAIN by Jack Finney.

Brenda