Leave those books alone!

I was reading The New York Times one morning and came across an article by A.E. Hotchner, a friend of the late Ernest Hemingway, regarding a revised edition of A Moveable Feast. Apparently a Hemingway grandson didn't like how his grandmother (wife #2) was portrayed and claims that the book was put together by Hemingway's wife (#4) after his death. Hotchner asserts that he was with Hemingway in the late 1950's when he was presented with an old trunk he had left at the Ritz in Paris in the 1920s that contained notebooks full of his observations and thoughts. Hotchner says he even got to read the final draft of the manuscript before Hemingway's death so the assertion that it was hobbled together by Mary Hemingway is not true. It reminds me of another story recently in the news regarding a Swedish novelist using the protagonist from J.D. Salinger's famous novel, The Catcher in the Rye as an elderly character in his own novel. Salinger sued the author on the basis of copyright infringement and won. Not all authors are so lucky. I remember years ago when Margaret Mitchell's heirs hired author Alexandra Ripley (who had already made a name for herself writing her own novels) to write a sequel to Gone With the Wind. Mario Puzo's The Godfather was published in 1969. Puzo died in 1999 and his publisher had a contest in the earlier part of this decade to find an author to write two sequels. Later this summer another book will be published as a sequel to Sidney Sheldon's Master of the Game. I believe it is the author's prerogative to write a sequel to their own work. If they felt that there was more to be done with their characters, they would have done so. I am not saying that these new books might not be any good (I don't read them on principle) but I think the authors in question should rely on their own creativity in coming up with characters and stories. Am I the only one who feels like these sequels and re-imaginings are cheating somehow? Writers and publishers seem to be cashing in on another writer's success by turning someone else's genuine creativity into a brand name under which to sell their own wares. Consider this: V.C. Andrews died in 1986 and has published more books since she died than she ever did while alive. Does this trend bother anyone else?