Terry Pratchett ordered his unfinished novels to be steamrolled when he died. But historically, many authors’ death wishes have not been honored. Luckily, in this case, Pratchett’s writing assistant carried out the order to a T. Guess we won’t be seeing another Discworld book after all. His daughter has even said she won’t create any more Discworld books, as it was her Dad’s world, not hers.
source
Argh. I would love a sequel to Good Omens with Neil Gaiman
Virgil ordered the Aeneid be destroyed from his deathbed, but upon his death Augustus Caesar overruled him.
As a hobbyist writer, I can't imagine asking anyone to ever destroy something I've created, unfinished or otherwise. But I guess that's why these guys are the pros and not me
This is a very polarizing issue.
This year alone, we had “En Agosto Nos Vemos”—the final book Marquez wrote, now published posthumously. A project even Rushdie expressed concerns about because Marquez himself did not wanted for it to see the light of day.
On account of his own sons, during the final years of his life, Marquez mental state had deteriorated so badly, he would read a book, praise its writing and claim he wanted to write something like it, only to reach the end and see his own picture on the sleeve. At which point he would get happy and confused and start the book again to see what he had written. Rinse and repeat…
Yet the book was published unfinished with the go-ahead from Marquez’ editor.
Go Set a watchman by Harper Lee the author didn’t want it published
I honestly don't get this. Find a backup like Sanderson does, don't just prevent it from ever being released.
I'm a huge Pratchett fan, I'm so glad his last wish with regards to his work was honoured. His assistants and his daughter have done a fantastic job of representing him before and since his death, but the fact of the matter is that without him, there is no Discworld.
The love of money is the root of all disrespectful posthumous publications