Culture | Estate of affairs

The business of mining literary estates is booming

As “Wonka” shows, long-dead authors’ work has become lucrative

Timothee Chalamet in a scene from the new film Wonka
Image: Alamy
|Berlin

LORD BYRON intended to publish his memoir, but his literary executor burned it instead. T.S. Eliot is thought never to have wanted songs made about his cats. Terry Pratchett, a British fantasy writer, had imagination: his former assistant honoured Pratchett’s wish to have a steamroller crush a hard drive containing the author’s unfinished stories.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Estate of affairs”

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