Valerie Eliot, the widow and literary executor of poet TS Eliot, has died at home in London after a short illness, aged 86.

BBC: TS Eliot's widow Valerie dies aged 86

The author Franz Kafka famously demanded that his papers be burned after his death, but his friend and literary executor Max Brod refuse to do it.

NPR: Family Pauses over Woman's Posthumous Request

"He may have written the fourth to fulfill a contract or because he needed more money, " said Michael Schmidt, the executor of Ford's literary estate.

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