Your Favourite Unfinished Creative Work?

History is full of unfinished masterpieces. They've wound up in this state for a variety of reasons (from the death of the genius who created them to something as inane as lack of funds). The purpose of this thread is to explore what the effects of the finished product would be (if any) on world history.

These can be literary, artistic, scientific or architectural works. But the rub of it lies in the fact that IF the creator's death is what caused its incomplete state (i.e. the clichéd example of Mozart's Requiem), he/she ONLY completes the work in question, no new projects (Mozart got the commission for the Requiem in July 1791, and died in December. Around the same time of the Requiem's commission, he received a commission for La Clemenza de Tito - which he finished by August/September, so clearly he COULD'VE finished a Requiem if he'd wanted to).

A couple of my favourites: Neuschwanstein Castle, Michelangelo's Julius Tomb (any of the versions BESIDES the final product), Dicken's Edwin Drood, Schubert's 8e (actually there are a few of Schubert's works he seems to have just given up on) symphony, Bernini's AND Cortona's designs for the Louvre, Wren's redesign for Whitehall and Winchester Palaces... I'll stop there, don't wanna take all the good ones ;)
 
Artis Magnae Artilleriae.

The first tome was already revolutionary, introduced concepts such as multi-stage rockets and delta wing stabilizers, and was used as an artillery manual in Europe for two centuries - and supposedly, the second tome of the book, which was never finished due to Kazimieras Semenavičius's death, was supposed to have details on the "universal pyrotechnic invention", which would drastically ease pyrotechnic calculations.

I'm not the type to follow Great Man Theory... but we might have missed a 17th century warfare revolution there.
 
Though not one of my personal favorites, The Canterbury Tales is certainly one of the most important, at least in English literature, so I thought that it warranted a mention.
 
Leonardo da Vinci's bronze horse in Milan.

Seconded. I always thought Michelangelo's snark about Leo (this was when Leo was one of the people deciding where the David should stand) : "he [Leo] once compared me [Mike] to a baker. I have created a giant. He...well, for twenty years he bragged about this marvellous horse statue he was going to make for the duke of Milan. And where's it now, hmm? Oh, that's right, sitting in Milan's cannons. Truth is, Signor Leonardo is incapable of finishing anything" was a bit unwarranted.

Yes da Vinci was a notorious procrastinator, and his mind was always on a dizen things at once, but it took Michelangelo 30years and some lawsuits from the della Rovere heirs to complete a much pared down tomb for Julius II
 
Steinbeck's translation/reimagining of L'Mort de Arthur (sure I butchered that spelling). What was completed before his death is just brilliant, and I remember reaching the end and just wanting it to keep going.
 
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