Edward Albee died last fall. But the renowned playwright is making one last request from the great beyond.

Albee wants two of his friends to destroy any incomplete manuscripts he left behind.

The instruction — included in a will Albee filed on Long Island, where he lived and died — is unusual but not unprecedented. There is a term in the legal world for such instructions — dead hand control — and, although compliance has varied and enforceability is debatable, they have been attempted by artists from Franz Kafka to a Beastie Boy.

For now, the impact of Albee’s will is a mystery. The executors — an accountant, Arnold Toren, and a designer, William Katz, both longtime friends of the playwright — declined through a spokesman to answer questions. They would not discuss whether any papers had already been destroyed.

But the executors have been carrying out other aspects of Albee’s will.

This fall, at the request of the estate, Sotheby’s will auction off more than 100 artworks collected by Albee; the proceeds, estimated at more than $9 million, will benefit his namesake foundation. (The playwright, who was gay, never married, had no children or close relatives. His foundation, which maintains a residence for artists in Montauk, N.Y., is the primary beneficiary of his estate.)