The association of ‘puritan’ with ‘happiness’ is not made easily or naturally, so deeply ingrained is the stereotype, summarised and promoted by the acerbic H. L. Mencken, that ‘Puritanism’ is ‘the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy’. It is an image that has endured, in one form or another, since the sixteenth century, reinforced by the media; whether it is Edmund Blackadder's austere – if incongruously dressed – puritan uncle and aunt in the eponymous BBC television series (‘Beer’, 1986); or, with far less tongue-in-cheek, Channel Four's series, New Worlds (2014). It is an image with a history as long as that of the label ‘puritan’ itself. In fact, aspects of modern stereotypes would have been familiar to William Shakespeare, who similarly portrayed puritans as dour, overweening killjoys. Benjamin Jonson was equally critical, portraying Zeal-of-the-Land Busy as avaricious and scheming, while his fellow puritans were little more than anarchists.

Support for this negative view has been found in the use puritans made of legislative power once it was theirs to ban Whitsun Ales, May Day celebrations, theatre and Christmas: the suppression of ‘Merry England’. The ‘puritan revolution’ has been contrasted with the reign of Charles II, ‘the Merry Monarch’, who revived something of happiness and cheer for his people, tired of austere government by Cromwell. This is a caricature that has come under increasing challenge. However, scholarship has affirmed a negative view of puritanism in regards to enjoyment, finding evidence in the writings of the puritans themselves – the invective of the New England puritan, Cotton Mather, against dancing, each step of which brings one nearer to hell, for example, is cited as reflecting a highly negative view of pleasure in general. All of this has contributed to the view that puritans were no fun at all.

However, an alternative view has also been presented. For example, Perry Miller argued that enjoyment and recreation were important aspects of puritan life, and a similar view has also been proposed by Bruce C. Daniels in his Puritans at Play (1995).