Missing Episode/Literature: Difference between revisions

** One well known example of lost literature: [[Sappho (Creator)|Sappho]]'s poems, the vast majority of which are simply lost to history (read: out of nine volumes of poetry, exactly ''one'' complete poem has survived.)

** ''[[The Iliad (Literature)|The Iliad]]'' and ''[[The Odyssey (Literature)|The Odyssey]]'' were originally just two of eight poems that made up the [[The Trojan Cycle (Literature)|Trojan Cycle]] telling the story of the Trojan War. The other six, which were not attributed to [[Homer]], are all lost. However, it is possible to deduce the contents of the other poems through a number of summaries, excerpts and references in extant works.

*** Said lost works include many of the most widely-known episodes of the whole saga. For example, [[Achilles Heel|Achilles' death]] and the building of the [[Trojan Horse]] happen after the events of the ''Iliad'', and were recounted in the ''Aethiopis'' and the ''Little Iliad'' respectively. The fall of Troy is the subject of the ''Iliou Persis'' ([[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Greek for "The Sack of Ilion")]].

*** A particularly scary hypothesis on the destruction of the Library's contents claims that the works of [[Aristotle (Creator)|Aristotle]], [[Plato]], Sappho, Alceus and many more were used to heat the baths in the city for months after the Library was ransacked. Luckily (or not) it's more widely accepted that most of the work in the Library was lost simply due to negligence during what was a politically disastrous time.

* An example that's notable for being a missing book concerning a major film. In the final years of his life, ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' writer Michael Piller spent a significant amount of time writing ''Fade In: The Making of [[Star Trek: Insurrection]]'', a very comprehensive look at the behind-the-scenes process and development of what was the ninth feature film for the franchise. While the book is very thorough and engaging, it also highlighted several elements that contributed to the [[Dork Age]] the franchise found itself in during the early 2000's: lots of jockeying between members of the TNG cast (notably Brent Spiner) for increased screen time, the scuttling of several scripts that had the [[What Could Have Been|potential]] to be much, much better than the final product, and a detailed breakdown of Paramount's policies and correspondence regarding test screenings and film reshoots. The manuscript was left unreleased, apparently due to Paramount not agreeing with the content in the book, and it remained lost for many years until a source close to Piller passed it to some of the notable Trek fan sites. Almost immediately, the sites were all forced to remove the manuscript due to a cease-and-desist order from Piller's family, and it has once again fallen into obscurity (save for the few fans who downloaded a copy when it was still available).

* The original manuscript of ''[[Alice in Wonderland (Literature)|Through the Looking Glass]]'' by [[Lewis Carroll]] included a character called "the wasp in a wig" (Alice would have encountered the wasp at the end of Chapter 8, after her meeting with the White Knight), but the character was cut before publication, possibly because illustrator John Tenniel found the character superfluous and could not see a satisfactory way to draw it. The galley proofs of the missing section (which included a previously unpublished poem) were reported to have turned up at auction at Sotheby's in 1974; they are widely believed to be authentic, but not universally so as no tests have been carried out to prove their age.

* ''[[Dead Souls]]'', the masterpiece of [[Nikolai Gogol (Creator)|Nikolai Gogol]]'s career, survives in fragments. It was going to be a three-volume work; Gogol had completed the second volume and started the third when he succumbed to severe depression and burned a lot of his drafts. What's left is volume one and some fragments from volume two.

* [[JTJ. T. Edson]] completed a fifth novel of his ''Bunduki'' series, titled ''Amazons of Zillikian'', that was never released due to a dispute with the [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] estate. Fans hold out hope that it will one day be released.

* ''[[Highlander (TV series)|Highlander]]'' had a series of 8 spin-off novels (which are apparently considered canon). A 9th novel was apparently ready for production, but either the license lapsed or it was cancelled due to lack of profitibility. This left the final book, "White Silence" with an ad for "Barricades", a novel which doesn't exist.