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Lost Works
I just finished reading It's a Good Life, if You Don't Weaken, a nonfiction comic-book story by Seth. The plot revolves around Seth's interest in an obscure gag-cartoonist named Kalo. At the end of the book Seth publishes a list of characters, including many once-famous comics and cartoonists I had never heard of. Henry Boltinoff? Whitney Darrow, Jr? Jimmy Hatlo and They'll Do It Every Time? Helen Hokinson? Doug Wright and Little Nipper? Jimmie Frise and Birdseye Center? Never heard of 'em.
These people had spent years of their lives creating their art. Once they died, their work was largely forgotten.
Lots of stuff published in the past was garbage, but I do not think that we have preserved all the stuff worth remembering. I know of no way to prove that assertion -- since the lost works are lost, I cannot present them to you -- but even looking at forgotten but still- available works is instructive. Thanks to Harlan Ellison I looked up the works of Bernard Wolfe, a novelist who published in the 1950s to the early 1970s. His books were popular enough that I found some of them archived at the local university annex. Despite being largely forgotten, the books are mostly fantastic. They are insightful and well-crafted. How many other wonderful novels have we forgotten?
Another treasure was a drab grey hardcover called the Harbrace College Reader. I found this book at a recycling depot, its pages deeply stained with some kind of brown fluid. Nobody would pay a penny for this book, but it is amazing. It collects essays and stories from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. I have learned a lot about the debates of the time that root our beliefs. Example: Americans dropped the u in words like "neighbour" as a result of an early twentieth century Amercian effort to simplify spelling. This never caught on in Britain, which is why their spelling (and thus Canadian spelling) differs from ours. This is the kind of knowledge we have forgotten.
Published books are archived by the Library of Congress, so at least there is some record of their publication. We cannot say the same for all the old magazines and pulp novels and advertisements that were printed to be discarded. Losing these records of human experience may be more frustrating than losing the songs and stories of ancient times, because the written word is so easy to archive. It just takes effort and storage space. Accessing and publicizing these old works is another matter, but I believe that problem is solvable.
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