The humorous side of Dutch culture of the 17th century is obscured by a change that took place around 1670. Religious treatises and books of manners warning against laughter contributed to a new image, that of the humorless Calvinist Dutch. Based on a manuscript containing some 2000 jokes, the lost laughter of the Golden Age is reconstructed and analyzed. Most jokes are crude and obscene, and they throw a new light on attitudes towards sexuality, religion, and other aspects of life.

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, autobiographers and diarists invented new ways to write about childhood and children. At the same time, pedagogical ideas about child-rearing changed. This book looks at the connection between these developments. Childhood became more highly valued as a phase of life, and children were taken more seriously. This is shown in chapters on child's play, punishment, wet-nursing, and independence. Around 1800, in diaries, parents more openly grieved about the loss of a child, which indicated both a change of literary conventions and changes in the way emotions were felt and expressed. Finally, autobiographers wrote more and differently about their early years, and developed new memory strategies.