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Publisher accused of 'grave robbing' for printing last two novels ...s felt their poor content would sully the reputation of one of thegreatest writers that Scotland has ever produced.

And the decision of Edinburgh University Press to publish bothworks  corrected, and in a combined volume  led last night toa claim of "literary grave robbing".

Scott penned his final novels in 1831 and 1832 after sufferingthree strokes which had taken a considerable toll on his formidablelinguistic abilities. The marked deterioration of his health ishighlighted in the manuscripts which are riddled with errors andspelling mistakes.

The late John Buchan read both works while researching a biographyof Scott in 1932 and remarked: "It may be hoped that no literaryresurrectionist will ever be guilty of the crime of giving them tothe world."

A century earlier, Scott's publisher Robert Cadell and the author'sson-in-law JG Lockhart had concluded that his final works were sofundamentally flawed, they should never see the light of day.

Paul Scott, who published a book based on Scott's journals, wassurprised to learn their wishes had been overturned.

He felt it would be unfair to judge the writer of classics such asIvanhoe and The Heart Of Midlothian on work that was penned whilehe was considerably incapacitated.

The author said: "Scott's health deteriorated quite markedly andyou can see that from his journal. It starts off as a veryintelligent, very well written and interesting piece of work, butas it gets towards the end of his life, it begins to fall apart.