The world of wills, inheritance and probate might sound like dry stuff – but like all of family law, it centres on family relationships in all their complexity and drama. So it's no wonder that wills and inheritance regularly crop up in literature.

Whether it's a forgery, a disinheritance or a Machiavellian scheme, wills provide ample opportunities for writers to explore ambition, greed, dishonesty and toxic family relationships. After all, these dry legal documents have the capacity to determine the course of a person's life.

So without further ado, here are seven of the best wills in literature.

1. Agatha Christie: Motive v Opportunity (1928)

The Queen of Crime wrote a set of short stories featuring the Tuesday Night Club – a group of sleuths who meet for dinner each week to share and solve real-life crimes.

In Motive v Opportunity, Mr Petherick tells the group a story about a will that's been tampered with.

Mysteriously, the only person who had the means to doctor the will lacked any reasonable motive – they were, in fact, favoured by it. But other parties who could have benefited from the tampering didn't have the opportunity to do so.

We won't spoil the plot, but let's just say that disappearing ink plays a part…

2. Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Mr Bennet is in a property-based pickle. His Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire is entailed, meaning it can be passed only to a male heir and can't be sold off – but he doesn't have a son and his wife has no inheritance. He fears that his death will plunge the family into financial difficulties.

Luckily, he has five daughters who can be married off to bring in some cash.

This legal point drives the plot. If it weren't for the niceties of 19th-century property law, there would be no Mr Darcy.

Entails have been outlawed in England since 1925 – so the inheritance aspect tends to be left out of modern retellings of the novel such as Bridget Jones's Diary.

3. Anthony Trollope: The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848)

Trollope was a 19th-century English writer best known for the Chronicles of Barsetshire – a series of novels set in a fictional cathedral town.

He himself had been affected by the issue of inheritance. He was born into an aristocratic background, but his father didn't receive the inheritance he expected when an uncle unexpectedly remarried and provided an heir.

The Kellys and the O'Kellys is probably most famous for its innovative use of Irish English, but its plot centres on a struggle for an inheritance.

Aristocrat Fanny Windham is in line to receive her brother's fortune, so her guardian tries to marry her off to his son. Frankly, she could do better – the man in question is loose-living and plagued with debts.

As in Pride and Prejudice, this novel shows how human relationships can be shaped by wills and inheritance.

4. Ian McEwan: Nutshell (2016)

In the 21st century, Ian McEwan describes a scheme to claim an inheritance in his short novel Nutshell.

Its central gimmick is that it's narrated by a foetus who overhears his mother's plot to kill his father. She's conspiring with her lover, the narrator's father's brother. (Confused yet? It's basically the plot of Hamlet.)

The conspiring couple is plotting to inherit a huge but dilapidated Georgian townhouse in central London. The narrator's uncle is a property developer who wants to add the £8 million property to his portfolio – so his father has to go.

5. Henry James: The Wings of the Dove (1902)

In this dense, subtle and fascinating novel, Kate Croy and Merton Densher are two Londoners in love – but they don't have the funds to marry.

They meet Milly Theale, a wealthy young American who falls mysteriously ill.

Kate encourages Merton to court Milly, eventually revealing that she wants them to marry. This is so that when Milly dies, Merton will inherit her money and he can finally marry Kate.

Tragically, the plot is revealed, Milly dies and the couple ultimately separate – a cautionary tale about the human capacity to manipulate others for our own ends.

6. George Eliot: Middlemarch (1871-2)

Middlemarch is a classic Victorian realist novel that paints a portrait of a fictional town in the English Midlands.

Nineteen-year-old orphan Dorothea Brooke enters a seemingly unlikely relationship with a 45-year-old scholar named Edward Casaubon.

Unlikely until you realise how starved Dorothea is of intellectual companionship. To her, Casaubon represents the life of the mind. It just so happens that he's pompous, cold and prone to jealousy, as well as erudite.

When Dorothea meets Casaubon's younger cousin Will Ladislaw, Casaubon grows suspicious – and not without cause, as Ladislaw secretly fancies Dorothea.

Casaubon falls ill and his will is read. It transpires that he plans to leave his whole estate to Dorothea – on the one condition that she doesn't marry Ladislaw. If she does, she'll be entirely disinherited.

This doesn't go down well, to put it mildly, and the young couple are married by the novel's end.

7. Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White (1859)

Finally, we end where we began – with a piece of detective fiction.

Wilkie Collins trained as a lawyer. He explained that his use of multiple narrators in The Woman in White was inspired by the way that court cases draw on multiple witnesses.

In the novel in question, Laura Fairlie's uncle puts her at the mercy of her husband Sir Percival Glyde – the villain of the piece.

Her uncle's will says that if she dies without a child before Glyde does, he'll get her fortune of £20,000 – and in the process disinherit her devoted half-sister.

Sir Percival has a motive to get Laura out of the way. But things get complicated, fast.

At Milners, we have a team of experienced, friendly inheritance lawyers who can assist with everything from will writing to Lasting Power of Attorney, from tax planning to disputes over inheritance. Do you want security for your future? Get in touch today.