HOME-BASED hospitality was very much a part of middling life in eighteenth-century England. In diary entries and letters from all parts of the country, in towns, cities and rural homes, people wrote of hosting friends and neighbours and the joys and occasional disasters that that entailed. As anyone who has ever planned a large house party knows, hospitality is hard work; for the rewards to outweigh the costs in effort and expenditure, a great deal of attention must be paid to every detail, from the choice of menu to the amusements on offer.

In reading eighteenth-century middling personal papers, I found that many mentions of hosted gatherings included a variety of card games, even though most of those occasions were not defined by card play. Instead, gaming at cards was a single scene in a more complex social performance, one which required good manners, some degree of experience, and a carefully constructed setting for success. In arranging their card tables and deciding on their menus, middling hosts acted (consciously or otherwise) within a system of expected standards of polite hospitality, and guests played their own roles along similar lines. Card tables became arenas for more than battles at whist and brag, as the often-opposing demands of politeness and exciting play brought emotions to the fore. Were cards a hindrance or a help to hospitality? In this chapter, we will look at card play as part of a more structured sociability, where the guests came by invitation and everyone moved within a framework of formalised expectations.

The home as stage

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the middling home had become a stage and a performance space, and dressing that stage was an exercise in tasteful spending. England's thriving trading economy had made many fortunes, and the rewards fell disproportionately to merchants and professionals.