The greatest loss of a manuscript of our age?

It is well known that perhaps only 10% of the significant manuscripts of the Greco-Roman intellectual world are available to us today: the rest were lost over the intervening couple of thousand years. But such losses can still occur today.

I have mentioned this before, but the single manuscript I most miss from the modern epoch is from Michael Oakeshott. Oakeshott's thought does not seem particularly Augustinian on its surface, and yet, he called Augustine the greatest mind who ever lived. But what's more, he had apparently written an entire book on Augustine, which was not published during his life.

And the thing is, no one has any idea what happened to the manuscript! His papers are in the LSE library (I have been through them), but not this manuscript. What became of it?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Libertarians, My Libertarians!

"Pre-Galilean" Foolishness