Lost Since the Early Modern
Lost Since the Early Modern
After printing became the normal method of publication in the West, books of importance could endure the ravages of time with much greater dependability. But any writing is still vulnerable while it is still in its manuscript or working stages, and many books of great interest vanished before they reached the printer’s type-case.
Poèmes pour Héloïse
Pierre Abèlard (c. 1079-1142)
Paris: Gallimard, 1930.
All surviving copies were burned following Abèlard’s trial.
One of the most celebrated couples of all time: he was a French philosopher, a forerunner to empiricism, she was one of the earliest contributors to modern feminist thought. Their story of passion and tragedy is intensely felt in these poems.
Love’s Labours Won
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616)
Cambridge: Yale University Press, 1919.
Lost by 1610.
Love’s Labours Won was written before 1598, the sequel to Love’s Labour’s Lost. It continues the tale of the King of Navarre and his three friends, young sports whose marriages were delayed at the end of the first play for a year of probation, until they could make account to their intendeds for their various infidelities and misdemeanors. Much hilarity ensues. The plays were given together until the second was replaced by Much Ado about Nothing.
The Queen’s Pageants
EDMUND SPENSER
New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 1958.
Lost following initial performances.
Pageants were large entertainments, full of color, music, dance, poetry, movement, and spectacle. They were scripted and had very carefully designed emblematic meaning, especially when the Queen was involved. The scripts for Spenser’s royal pageants, collected here, cast light on The Faerie Queene and on the many ways that clever courtiers were able to complement their Queen. They are missed with the same regret as the last six books of the poem.
The Maiden’s Holiday
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564–1593)
London: Wharburton, 1754.
Destroyed by John Wharburton’s cook before 1759.
Kit Marlowe’s magical comedy about a young lady’s visit to her grandparents’ country house and what she found in the gardens there. The play was registered by Humphrey Moseley for printing sixty years after Marlowe’s death. It resurfaced again fifty years later in the possession of John Wharburton, where it apparently was used by his cook to start fires and line pie tins. Nothing of the manuscript survived her recycling.
Love a Cheate
SAMUEL PEPYS (1633–1703)
Paris: Club Fortsas, 1897.
Torn up by the author, January 30, 1664.
Begun ten years before while Pepys was at Cambridge, this work (which Pepys called a “romance”) did not displease him when he re-read it in 1664, and indeed, he doubted he could do as well in the present. Nevertheless, to make “...all things even and clear in the world,” he shredded the only copy of the manuscript.
The Scented Garden
لروض العاطر في نزهة الخاطر
Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nefzawi (fl. 15th century)
SIR RICHARD BURTON (trans.) (1821-1890)
[Boston]: The Burton Club, n.d.
Burned by Lady Elizabeth Burton.
Sir Richard Francis Burton was a British explorer and scholar. Several of his English translations of Eastern classics have become standards: (The Arabian Nights and The Kama Sutra, for example). For this reason it is especially sad that his translation of The Scented Garden has not survived. The sole manuscript of the Burton version of The Scented Garden was burned at his death by his wife Isabel, who feared for his reputation.
One Must First Endure
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
New York: Scribner’s, 1924.
Disappeared from the Gare de Lyon in 1922.
Hemingway wrote his first novel in Paris in 1922, then headed to Lausanne to cover the peace conference. He wrote his new wife, Hadley, urging her to join him. She packed, thoughtfully including his current manuscripts. On the train, she left her seat to buy a bottle of water, and the bag was stolen, never to be recovered. The marriage didn’t last.
The title was Hemingway’s motto: “Il faut d’abord durer.” One must indeed.