List of lost novels

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The list of lost novels contains a chronological listing of largely completed novels and short stories by authors of world literature that have already been lost as manuscripts . The causes of the losses are manifold and range between carelessness and censorship. Lost or destroyed works that were written a second time from memory by their authors are also recorded. Works are also listed whose existence can only be proven by an assertion by the author.

Time of loss author title Type of loss
1675 René Descartes Olympica The lost manuscript of the Olympica was last excerpted by Leibnitz in 1675 .
1775 José Cadalso La Linterna Magica The manuscript for a satirical utopian novel was lost when it was sent to the publisher Meléndez Valdés in 1775, along with the manuscripts of a treatise and a tragedy.
1796 ETA Hoffmann The mysterious one The manuscript for ETA Hoffmann's first novel, written 1795–1796, was lost at an unknown time.
1803 Heinrich von Kleist Title unknown The manuscript of the almost completed tragedy Robert Guiskard and, among other papers, probably also the manuscript of an autobiographical novel were destroyed by Kleist in Paris, according to his own statements.
1807 Marquis de Sade Les Journees de Florbelle The 6,000-page manuscript of de Sade's last novel was burned in the courtyard of the Charenton asylum in the presence of his son.
1807 Lord Byron untitled Lord Byron tried four times to write a short story or a prose text. Byron burned a 214-page novella in 1807.
1813 Lord Byron untitled Lord Byron burned a completed autobiographical novel in 1813. The title has not survived.
1825 Nathaniel Hawthorne Seven Tales of my native land Hawthorne destroyed his short story collection, which was probably connected by a framework act, after it was rejected by publishers. Some content may have been reused in later novellas.
1828 Alphonse Rabbe La Soeur grise According to Rabbe's own statements, the unpublished manuscript was stolen, even if its existence has been questioned by some biographers because of Rabbe's brain weakness caused by syphilis.
1832 Marquis de Sade untitled Another manuscript of a novel by de Sade was burned in the courtyard of the Paris police in the presence of his son Claude-Armand de Sade.
1833 Karl Schall untitled Karl Schall claims to have written a comic novel in the last years of his life and contractually regulated the preprint of the first chapters with the editorial staff of “des Freymütigen”. Nevertheless, after Schall's death in 1833, not a single line of the novel was found among the papers and notes that had been left behind, which is therefore considered by some biographers to be imaginary.
1840 Wilhelm Waiblinger Lord Lilly The manuscript of the novel, written in 1823–1825, was last presented to Eduard Mörike in 1840, who advised against printing.
1840 Theodor Fontane You did right! Fontane's first naturalistic novel, written in 1840, has not survived.
1852 Nikolai Gogol The lost souls, part two Gogol burned the sequel "The Dead Souls", which in his opinion was unsuccessful, in Rome after he had destroyed manuscripts of the sequel in 1842.
1904 Franz Kafka The child and the city Kafka's book project "The Child and the City", begun in 1903, has been lost since its inception.
1906 Robert Walser The Asia assistant In anger, Walser destroyed the manuscript of the "Asian assistant" after it was rejected by the publisher Cassirer. The Asian assistant, Walser's second novel, was not identical to the novel Der Gehülfe .
1919 Robert Walser Tobold Walser also destroyed the manuscript for his novel "Tobold" after it was rejected by the Rascher Verlag. Only one fragment was published in 1915.
1919 TE Lawrence The seven Pillars of Wisdom In 1919 Lawrence left the only manuscript of his autobiographical novel on the platform of Reading Station when changing trains and was forced to rewrite the entire text.
1920 Heimito from Doderer Catherine When he returned from captivity in Siberia, Doderer's manuscript for his novel Katharina was lost except for a fragment.
1921 Robert Walser Theodore Walser also destroyed the manuscript for his novel "Theodor". In 1925, Walser admitted to having destroyed three manuscripts of novels.
1927 Louis Aragon La Defense de l 'Infini Aragon burned the manuscript of his "Novel of Novels" after a dispute with Breton, who believed that novels were not a legitimate form of expression of the avant-garde.
1930 Mikhail Afanassievich Bulgakov Master and Margarita In 1930, Bulgakov destroyed the first manuscript of his novel Meister und Margarita in 15 chapters, which was then revised by 1940.
1930 Henry Miller Clipped wings In Paris in 1930, Henry Miller entrusted the manuscript of his first novel, written in three weeks in 1923, to the bookseller and publisher Edward Titus, who immediately lost the manuscript.
1933 Lion Feuchtwanger Josephus, 2nd volume The manuscript of volume 2 of the Joseph trilogy was destroyed in the looting of Feuchtwanger's house in Berlin. Feuchtwanger rewrote the volume in a new concept.
1933 Yvan Goll The aging Lucifer The manuscript of the new version of the "Eurokokke" was lost after Goll's writings were banned in Germany. The French version or arrangement has been preserved.
1936 Jakow Gollosovker Jesus leaves Moscow The manuscript of the unpublished novel was destroyed by a friend of his painter after Gollosowker was arrested by the KGB. Gollosowker wrote the 1991 novel again in 1939.
1938 John Cheever The holly tree Cheever even destroyed his novel manuscript written in 1937–1938. According to Susan Cheever, there was a destroyed manuscript of an even earlier novel.
1940 Alfred Kantorowicz untitled Kantorowicz's first novel, in which he processed his experiences in Erlangen from 1929, fell into the hands of the Gestapo in France in 1940 and was destroyed.
1941 Joseph Breitbach Clemens (story) It is originally a chapter from a novel of the same name that was published under the title The Return in 1937 in the first issue of the magazine Maß und Wert published by Thomas Mann . In 1941 the Gestapo in Paris confiscated the manuscript of the novel. It was brought to Moscow by Soviet troops in the final phase of World War II and later given to the GDR. Breitbach learned nothing of this.
1943 Henry de Montherlant Père et fils The manuscript of the approximately 200-page novel written in 1941 was used by Montherlant as a template for the drama Fils et personne and then destroyed.
1943 Andrei Platonowitsch Platonow Journey from Moscow to Petersburg The confiscated complete manuscript of the novel was destroyed by the KGB in 1943.
1944 Hans Fallada The Kutisker Project The dubious anti-Semitic manuscript on Iwan Kutisker , written in 1943 at the Strelitz sanatorium in Fallada on behalf of the Propaganda Ministry, was lost in the chaos of war.
1944 Dominique Desanti Les Termites Desanti burned her novel manuscript, which was written from 1941 on Sartre's suggestion, after joining the PCF, because it contained sympathies for the Trotskyist movement.
1950 Truman Capote Summer crossing When he moved in 1950, Capote left the inventory of his apartment to the caretaker, including the largely finished manuscript. It was lost for Capote. It was offered to Sotheby's in 2004 and printed posthumously in 2005.
1966 Irmtraud Morgner Rumba on an autumn The manuscript of the completed novel disappeared in 1966 under unexplained circumstances. The text was published in a reconstructed version after Morgner's death in 1992.
1993 Liao Yiwu For a song and a hundred songs Between 1989 and 1993, the first two versions of his novel were taken from Liao Yiwu in various prisons and re-education camps by the secret police and probably destroyed. Only the third version could be smuggled out of China.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Borkenau: The transition from feudal to bourgeois worldview: Studies on the history of the philosophy of the manufacturing period. Ayer Publishing, 1975, p. 285.
  2. ↑ Hans-Joachim Lope: The "Cartas Marruecas" by José Cadalso. Vittorio Klostermann, 1973, p. 65.
  3. ↑ Lothar Pikulik: Romanticism as inadequacies in normality. Suhrkamp, ​​1979, p. 104.
  4. ↑ From the Antiquariat, Issues 1–12, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Booksellers Association, 2001.
  5. ↑ Davide Giuriato: Images of handwriting: the graphic dimension of literature. Stroemfeld, 2006, p.
  6. ^ Otto Schmidt: Rousseau and Byron. Books on Demand, 2010, p. 107.
  7. ^ Otto Schmidt: Rousseau and Byron. Books on Demand, 2010, p. 107.
  8. ^ Nathaniel Hawthorne: Collected Novels. Library of America , 1983, p. 1244.
  9. ↑ Lucienne de Wieclawik: Alphonse Rabbe dans la melee politique et litteraire de la restauration. Nizet, Paris 1963, pp. 328f.
  10. ^ Neil Schaeffer: The Marquis De Sade: A Life. Harvard University Press, 2000, footnote 73, p. 545.
  11. ^ Karl Schall, August Kahlert: Carl Schall's postponed rhymes and riddles. Graß, ︣ Barth & Co., Breslau 1849, p. 30.
  12. ^ Eduard Mörike: Works and Letters: 1839–1841. Klett-Cotta, 1988, note 220 on p. 572.
  13. ^ Theodor Fontane: From twenty to thirty. Tradition, 2011, p. 25.
  14. ↑ Olga Nikitina: Gogol's self-identity in the novel The Dead Souls. GRIN Verlag, 2007, p. 17.
  15. ^ Andreas B. Kilcher: Franz Kafka. Suhrkamp, ​​2008, p. 80.
  16. ↑ Bernhard Echte: Robert Walser: his life in pictures and texts. Suhrkamp, ​​2008, p. 489.
  17. ↑ Bernhard Echte: Robert Walser: his life in pictures and texts. Suhrkamp, ​​2008, p. 325ff.
  18. ↑ Richard Deiss: Vane Cathedral and Sugar Beet Station: Little Stories about 222 Railway Stations in Europe. Book on Demand, 2011, p. 65.
  19. ↑ Heimito von Doderer: The Siberian Clarity. CH Beck, 1991, p. 118.
  20. ↑ Bernhard Echte: Robert Walser: his life in pictures and texts. Suhrkamp, ​​2008, p. 352ff.
  21. ^ Rita Bischof: Teleskopagen, optional. Vittorio Klostermann, 2001, p, 389
  22. ↑ Xenia Janzen: Modern Demons - Mikhail Bulgakov's “Master i Margarita” and Thomas Mann's “Doctor Faustus”. GRIN Verlag, 2009, p. 3.
  23. ^ Herbert Faulkner West: The Mind on the Wing, A Book for Readers and Collectors. Ayer Publishing, 1971, p. 126.
  24. ↑ Hans Otto Horch, Horst Denkler: Judaism, anti-Semitism and German-language literature from the First World War to 1933/1938. Walter de Gruyter, 2009, p. 273
  25. ^ Heike Schmidt: Art mondial: Forms of internationality with Yvan Goll. Königshausen & Neumann, 1999, p. 135.
  26. ^ Eastern Europe, Volume 43, Issues 9–12, German Society for Eastern European Studies, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1993, p. 1115.
  27. ^ Annegret Wemhöner: The Deeper levels of life and the sense of time and place. John Cheever's novel between Romance and Novel of Manners. John Benjamin Publishing Company, 1988, p. 12.
  28. ↑ Wolfgang Gruner: "A fate that I shared with a great many others". Alfred Kantorowicz - His life and time from 1899 to 1935. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2006, ISBN 978-3-89958-209-3 , p. 126.
  29. ^ Berthe-Odile Simon-Schaefer: The novels Henry de Montherlants. Librairie Droz, 1975, p. 47.
  30. ^ Rainer Georg Grübel: literary axiology . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2001, p. 312.
  31. ^ Sigrid Nieberle: Literary historical film biographies. Authorship and literary history in the cinema. With a filmography 1909–2007. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, p. 184.
  32. ^ Ian H. Birchall: Sartre Against Stalinism. Berghahn Books, 2004, p. 38.
  33. ^ Simone Barck, Martina Langermann, Siegfried Lokatis: Every book is an adventure. Akademie Verlag, 1997, p. 274.
  34. ↑ Julius Jasso: Liao Yiwu and the brutal work of remembering. In: Cicero. August 28, 2011.