8 Series that Continued After Their Author’s Death

Trigger Mortis, by Anthony Horowitz and Ian Fleming
There has been a steady supply of James Bond novels in the decades since Ian Fleming’s death, so a new one isn’t all that surprising. But Anthony Horowitz’s thrilling Trigger Mortis isn’t just a mild reboot of the character with a retro plot, it’s actually based on an unproduced television script the Bond creator worked on, and contains original Fleming material. Horowitz does an expert job of matching the author’s tone and style, and readers will be hard-pressed to separate the two in this story set a few weeks after the events of Goldfinger—which includes an appearance by the ultimate Bond Girl, Pussy Galore.

Poodle Springs, by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker
Raymond Chandler wasn’t just a great writer of detective novels, he was a great writer, period, trading in spare, hard-bitten descriptions and plots so dense they neared philosophical levels of complexity. When he passed away in 1959 he left behind four chapters of a new novel under the title “The Poodle Springs Story.” In 1988, Robert B. Parker—famous for his Spenser novels—was invited to complete it, which he did so successfully it’s hard to remember the story’s fractured origins as you read it.

Fan-Tan, by Marlon Brando, Donald Cammel, and David Thomson
No, we did not know that Marlon Brando wrote a novel. The book originated as a screenplay Brando collaborated on with Donald Cammell (who directed Performance, starring Mick Jagger), then became a novel Brando worked on for years but refused to show anyone. After Brando’s death, David Thomson took what was probably a mess of a manuscript and pared it down into something recognizable as a novel, adding a closing chapter that mimicked Brando’s colorful wordplay, which favors fun and energy over sense and grammar. The end result: an adventure novel set on the high seas that is simultaneously traditional and insane, more or less like Brando himself.

Blind Love, by Wilkie Collins and Walter Besant
Wilkie Collins is best known for The Woman in White, but he was a prolific and popular writer in the late 19th century, and Blind Love, about an independent-minded Englishwoman who falls in love with an Irish assassin despite his crimes, was being serialized in a newspaper when the author took ill. On his deathbed, Collins asked his friend Walter Besant to finish the book, which he did, publishing it with a preface explaining the circumstances. Blind Love isn’t regarded as Collin’s best work, but how much of that is Besant’s fault is impossible to know.

The Last Cavalier, by Alexandre Dumas and Claude Schopp
Alexandre Dumas is one of the most famous and most successful writers in history, an author whose novels are still read, referenced, and adapted to this day. In 1990, a Dumas scholar named Claude Schopp found parts of a serialized novel by Dumas—and then kept the discovery a secret for 15 years while he searched for missing material. Finally, after finding more fragments and notes on the novel, he wrote the final three chapters and published the novel. What makes this extra interesting is that the book completes Dumas’ Sainte-Hermine trilogy, which had remained incomplete for more than a century.

Queen, by Alex Haley and David Stevens
Alex Haley will forever be remembered for Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, but Queen was a novel close to his heart, based on his own family history and his lineage as the descendant of “children of the plantation,” or black children fathered by white slave owners who were legally their property. He worked on the novel for years but died before completing it; his friend, the filmmaker David Stevens, completed the novel based more on personal conversations with Haley than the notes left behind, and the end result is a heartbreaking book that shines a light on a part of American history that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, by Walter M. Miller and Terry Bisson
A Canticle for Leibowitz is the only novel Walter M. Miller, Jr. published in his lifetime, and considering its enduring legacy and influence on the science fiction genre, that is a tragedy. Miller was apparently offered a very small advance for a follow-up novel, which he turned down, but he worked on a sequel for decades before committing suicide in 1996. Author Terry Bisson, who knew Miller, completed the novel, and though it was published nearly 40 years after the original, it almost perfectly matches Miller’s style and approach.

Z for Zachariah, by Robert C. O’Brien, Sally Conly, and Jane Conly
Robert C. O’Brien was the pen name for Robert Leslie Conly, known for his 1971 novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Shortly before his death, he turned to writing novels intended for adults, but passed away before completing Z for Zachariah. His wife and daughter actually completed the book, publishing it to acclaim in 1974 (it was adapted into a film starring Chris Pine, Margot Robbie and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 2015). The final product is seamless, as Sally and Jane Conly perfectly match Robert’s tone, working from his copious notes.