In search of lost works

More works are lost than exist. In other words, and against all expectations, the loss of works is the general case, not their preservation. The metaphysical and Leibnizian question  therefore arises: why are there works rather than nothing ? To answer this question, we must set out in search of lost works: those that were written and disappeared entirely, those that should have been written and weren't, but also monuments of dubious authenticity, disfigured texts, those that should have disappeared and were saved in extremis. Can we reconstruct these lost or aborted works ? What difference do they make to our experience of literature ? What do they tell us about the preserved works ? And don't we already have enough books, that we have to search for those that have been lost ?