10 Unfinished Stephen King Novels (That He Should Definitely Finish)
1. The Leprechaun
The Leprechaun may or may not have been a novel; a short story at the very least, but tragically, the pages of it were lost off the back of a motorcycle early in King's career. About thirty pages had been completed in a notebook - which is now lost to the sands of time and happenstance.
What's so great about The Leprechaun? It was written, like The Eyes of the Dragon, for one of King's children - in this case, his son, Owen. Actually cooked up a few years before The Eyes of the Dragon (which was penned with his daughter in mind), The Leprechaun features Owen, a young boy, spotting the family cat swatting at and playing with something in the backyard. That something, which is shrieking and trying to get away, turns out to be a small man with a green hat made from a leaf: a leprechaun.
The few surviving pages paint the family cat, Springsteen, as a devilishly evil feline, and the story is very much a children's tale of magical whimsy. With some editing and updating, The Leprechaun wouldn't feel far off from, say, Harry Potter in tone.
King once said he'd likely be able to recreate what was missing, but never did, and the decades passed. It's a shame, because it seems like he had a great children's fantasy tale in him.