Alost literary work (referred throughout this article just as a lost work) is a document,literary work, or piece of multimedia, produced of which no surviving copies are known to exist, meaning it can be known only through reference, orliterary fragments. This term most commonly applies to works from theclassical world, although it is increasingly used in relation to modern works. A work may be lost to history through the destruction of an originalmanuscript and all later copies.
Works—or, commonly, small fragments of works—have survived by being found byarchaeologists during investigations, or accidentally by laypersons such as, for example, the findingNag Hammadi library scrolls. Works also survived when they were reused asbookbinding materials, quoted or included in other works, or aspalimpsests, where an original document is imperfectly erased so the substrate on which it was written can be reused. The discovery, in 1822, ofCicero'sDe re publica was one of the first major recoveries of a lost ancient text from a palimpsest. Another famous example is the discovery of theArchimedes Palimpsest, which was used to make a prayer book almost 300 years after the original work was written. A work may be recovered in a library, as a lost or mislabeledcodex, or as a part of another book or codex.
Well known but not recovered works are described bycompilations that did survive, such as theNaturalis Historia ofPliny the Elder or theDe architectura ofVitruvius. Sometimes authors will destroy their own works. On other occasions, authors instruct others to destroy their work after their deaths. Such instructions are not always followed:Virgil'sAeneid was saved byAugustus, andKafka's novels byMax Brod. Handwritten copies ofmanuscripts existed in limited numbers before the era of printing. The destruction ofancient libraries, whether by intent, chance or neglect, resulted in the loss of numerous works. Works to which no subsequent reference is preserved remain unknown.
Deliberate destruction of works may be termedliterary crime orliterary vandalism (seebook burning).
Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lostIncunable (works printed in Europe before 1501) editions is at least 20,000.[1]