About the Author

Richard Grassby has spent a lifetime exploring the social and economic history of early modern Britain. His major works include: The English Gentleman in Trade: The Life and Works of Sir Dudley North 1641-1691; The Business Community of Seventeenth Century England; Kinship and Capitalism: Marriage, Family and Business in the English-Speaking World, 1580-1740 and Rhetoric and Reality: Culture and Change in early modern Britain.