Super topic!! And a really tough issue. Kafka's friend Max Brod burned much of Kafka's manuscripts and materials after he died, but not all of them. We lost tons of Jane Austen letters because her sister followed her wishes mostly. This adds to her mystique, but is a very sad loss in my mind.

Basically I come down on the side of saving the manuscripts - they may not be the author's best - but they are historical documents that help readers to understand the mind and process of the writer even if they aren't as "great" as prior works.

One has to wonder a bit why the authors don't burn their materials themselves if they really want them gone. Obviously Austen didn't necessarily have her own letters, but Nabokov was racing to finish his manuscript before he died - so it just seems funny to me, that he would then want the thing to be burned. Maybe he wanted it to be published with the publicity that would note that he had asked for it to be burned - who knows!!

Authors last wishes should always be honored.

Sometimes one has to be "decent" even when it is painful!

I think they should but given today's climate of exposing everything, I think it would be wisest for an author to get rid of anything they don't want published. That being said though, I'm pretty sure that once I'm dead I'm not going to care what someone digs out of my footlocker.

They should also make sure they have a friend to get rid of the materials if they get hit by a bus...