This chapter introduces household affect ecologies and household object ecologies, tracing them from the different theoretical perspectives used throughout MS Ashmole 61. It offers a deep description of Objects of affection’s central object, Ashmole 61, through a consideration of the book’s full materiality. This it considers in relation to other books of its sort – in the process establishing an alternative taxonomy for books produced in the late Middle Ages for, within, and by gentry and merchant households. The chapter surveys current theoretical developments in literary manuscript study and demonstrates what Ashmole 61 has to offer to a book history rooted in new materialist concerns. This it does through investigating features of Ashmole 61’s distinctive materiality, which includes an exceptional and extended campaign of iconic scribal signatures in the form of recurring fish and flower graffiti. The introduction also considers how our cultures of editing have transformed medieval books and ponders what they are currently becoming in the process of mass digitisation of medieval manuscripts – and how this development both challenges and enables ecologically grounded manuscript study.