Did you know John Keats' will was just a single line of iambic pentameter? "My chest of books divide amongst my friends," Keats noted.
Our friends at Mental Floss compiled a list of some of the more interesting wills in recent memory. Benjamin Franklin left his daughter a portrait of King Louis XVI that contained 408 diamonds — but he specified that none of the diamonds should be made into jewelry. Charles Dickens, meanwhile, was a dictator from beyond the grave, asking that those who attended his funeral "wear no scarf, black bow, long hat band, or other such revolting absurdity."
Meanwhile, Patrick Henry warned his wife that she would lose her inheritance if she remarried after his death, and Shakespeare left his wife, Anne Hathaway, his "second-best bed." Check out all of the odd requests in the video below. --Meghan DeMaria
The Week
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