Some of us will have been gifted books this Christmas that maybe should not have been published.

How literary estates are managed in the aftermath of an author’s death, or how the private material that lies locked away after an individual’s demise are handled by relatives, raises the tricky ethical question of whether commerce will trump conscience.

This was brought back in to focus this year with the publication of previously unpublished short stories by Harper Lee, famous for her 1960 debut To Kill A Mockingbird, which went on to sell over 40 million copies. There was no follow up until the end of her life, when she was incapacitated by a stroke.

The manuscript of an earlier novel, Go Set a Watchman, was found in her papers and published in 2015, the year before her death. Lee’s health was such that some insisted that she was not in a position to properly authorise this; others insisted she approved.

Lee had submitted the short stories – drafted in the decade before her 1960 success – to publishers but they were rejected. This has allowed those commending their publication to insist, as her nephew Ed Lee Conner has, that she would be delighted to see them published. But that is a debatable contention; there are sound reasons why certain manuscripts remain unpublished.

© The Irish Times