We live in an age that does not want so much to know their duty as to practice it; not so much to be taught, as to be made obedient to what they have already learnt. The Introduction to Volume One of Defoe's Family Instructor (1715) makes clear that the purpose of these volumes will be didactic, offering sage advice to readers as to how to conduct their religious duties within the domestic sphere. Although conduct works were generally popular during this period, Defoe's Family Instructor was particularly successful: Volume One reached its eighth edition by 1720 and its seventeenth English edition by 1794. One reason for this success was Defoe's use of a lively format of brief dialogues between fictional characters in orde

This article in full comprises 1590 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

Published 24 January 2002

Citation: Pritchard, Penny. "The Family Instructor". The Literary Encyclopedia. 24 January 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=899, accessed 9 February 2010.]