Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Middle Way: Cultural Skirmishes

1 Contesting Cultural Authority: The Code of Honor and Its Critics

2 “That Wild Decision of the Private Sword”

3 Against “Nature, Religion and Good Manners”: Debating Suicide

4 “The Chief Topics of Conversation”: Adultery and Divorce in the Bon Ton

5 Deserving “Most the Cognizance of the Magistrate and the Censor”: Combating Gaming

6 Vice in an Age of Respectability

Conclusion: An End to Aristocratic Vice?

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index