Happy Families Happy Families Happy Families is a traditional card game, usually with a specially made set of picture cards, featuring illustrations of fictional families of four, most often based on occupation types. The object of the game is to collect complete families. The player whose turn it is asks another player for a specific card from the same family as a card that the player already has. If the asked player has the card, he gives it to the requester and the requester can then ask any player for another card. If the asked player does not have the card, it
Happy Families ladders, and first published before the Great Exhibition of 1851. Cards following Jaques's original designs, with grotesque illustrations possibly by Sir John Tenniel (there was no official credit), are still being made. The "Happy Families" children's storybooks, written by Allan Ahlberg, are titled in a similar way to the names of characters in this game. The names of the family members are structured as follows, where X stands for a surname and Y for an occupation. Family names, which vary from edition to edition, include: The eleven families indicated by Bold italics are from Jaques's original edition. In 1989 and