The Romance of Wills and Testaments

"The Romance of Wills and Testaments" by Edgar Vine Hall is a series of essays from the early 1900s that sees wills as more than just legal papers, and they reveal the personalities and stories of the people who wrote them. The author shows us how wills deeply reflect who we are, full of emotions like humor and sadness, as they share the last wishes of different people. Hall starts by saying that wills give us a close look at a person's character and the world they lived in. By telling stories about well-known people such as John Milton and Bishop Corbet, Edgar Vine Hall shows how wills can give insight to relationships and lives while using a style that mixes literature and historical analysis. He wants readers to see the hidden value in these ordinary documents.