Happy Families

Happy Families is a traditional card game played in the UK, 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 becomes his turn and he asks another player for a specific card. Play continues in this way until no families are separated among different players. The player with the most cards wins. The game can be adapted for use with an ordinary set of playing cards (see Go Fish).

The game was devised by John Jaques II, who is also credited with inventing tiddlywinks, ludo and snakes and 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.

A series of children's books based on the characters (including several never used on the cards such as Mrs Wobble the Waitress) was written by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Janet Ahlberg and other artists.