This book concerns the history of the family in eighteenth-century England. Tadmor provides a new interpretation of concepts of household, family and kinship through her analysis of contemporary language (in diaries, conduct treatises, novels by Richardson and Haywood, and other sources). She emphasizes the importance of the household in constructing notions of the family, and shows how ties of ''friendship'' formed vital social, economic and political networks. Her book makes a substantial contribution to eighteenth-century history, and will be of value to all historians and literary scholars of the period.