2020: The Year in Collecting

2020 hasn't been good for much, but it has been good for my collection. It's hard to find editions of Hoyle that I lack, but some early and interesting ones found their way here. 

The first two books are a 1744 Cogan edition of Quadrille and a 1745 Osborne edition of Piquet. I had neither, so this is pretty exciting news! There is a short and a long version to their stories. First, the short. When Osborne acquired the Hoyle copyright from Cogan, he also acquired some unsold copies of Quadrille and Piquet. As discussed in the essay "Every Cancel Tells a Story, Don't It (part 3)", Osborne reissued each of these books with cancel titles. I'd never had the original Cogan Quadrille, though I did have a copy of Osborne's reissue. It is rare with three copies at the Bodleian, one at UNLV and now one here. I had neither issue of Piquet, so one down, one to go. 

Quadrille.1.1
first edition by Francis Cogan (1744)
Levy [2112]

Piquet.1.2
reissued by Osborne (1745)
Levy [2112]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the long version. These two copies were not individually published. For an example of how Cogan published the individual treatises, see here and for an Osborne example see here. Instead, these were each published as part of collections of all of Hoyle's treatises. The collections included Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, and Backgammon, and occasionally the rare sheet, Laws of Whist, but were advertised, bound, and sold as a collection. The collections can come in many permutations as I discuss in the essay "The Osborne Collections of Hoyle (1745-7)". I don't want to rehash the details here, but the main differentiators are:

• Whist.6 or Whist.7 (the sixth or seventh edition of Whist)?
  
• Piquet.1.2 or Piquet.2 (the Osborne reissue of Cogan's Piquet or the Osborne's reprint)?
  
• Quadrille.1.2 or Quadrille.2 (the Osborne reissue of Cogan's Quadrille or the Osborne's reprint)?

The Piquet pictured above came with Whist.6, Quadrille.1.2, Piquet.1.2, and BG.2. There is a separately issued Piquet.1.2 at the Clark Library at UCLA and copies of this collection at the Bodleian, The Library Company of Philadelphia, and the American Contract Bridge League. Uncommon, yes, but a collection I had seen before. 

The second collection, the one containing Cogan's Quadrille.1.1, was entirely new to me. One might expect to find it in a Cogan collection (discussed here), but here it was in an Osborne collection, consisting of Whist.7, Laws.2, Piquet.2, Quadrille.1.1, and BG.2. What was a Cogan Quadrille doing in a collection of Osborne imprints? I can only assume that Osborne neglected to cancel the title page of this particular copy. This is a unique configuration.

The collection includes a copy of the Laws of Whist (see the 2012 essay "An Insomniac's Reward"). It's not quite as rare as I thought when I wrote about it in 2012. I now have two copies as does Vanderbilt. Copies at the Bodleian and UNLV bring the total to six.

Tyson Bookplate

One extra in the book is a partial, but charming bookplate. It should have been easy to identify. The initials S & M T are suggestive and the heraldic elements are simple enough that I expected to find it in the standard references, even with my limited skills. One can deduce the colors from the shading. The oval field is azure and the lozenge vert. There are three lions rampant (standing) regardant (facing backward). Nonetheless, I found nothing. 

I queried the book lists, book friends on social media, and sent out emails to experts. I finally learned from a member of The Bookplate Society that the arms belonged to the Tyson family. The only reference was an 1875 book by Frederick Cansick with drawings of monuments from Tottenham churches. The arms appeared on the grave of Edward Tyson (d. 1723), so the bookplate must belong to a descendant. Heraldry is hard!

Almanach du Whisk (1765)
Levy [2115]

Three more Hoyles. First is an almanac with a translation of Hoyle's Whist that I bought at auction. The catalogue said that book was dated 1766, but when it arrived something seemed a bit off with the final "I" in the Roman numeral for the date. It does not seem to be letterpress, but rather stamped over a letterpress period that was used to separate parts of the date. Thus, the book is really from 1765 and indeed the calendar, though undated, matches days of the week for 1765 rather than 1766. The bookseller probably had copies left over at the end of the year and was trying to disguise the date.

If someone purchased the book in 1766 for the almanac they would have been disappointed. And I might have been disappointed as well--I already had a 1765 copy, though without the almanac.  But there was a hidden bonus--the brocade endpapers are spectacular. And it is possible to identify the paper maker as Georg Reymund:

brocade endpapers by Georg Reymund

You can see another specimen of the same paper at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Despite the duplication, I am really pleased with the purchase. It's lovely! 

A few weeks ago, I was on a panel sponsored by the Rare Book School called "Collecting & Copyright: Three Case Studies". The video is now available on YouTube. I discussed how the end of the Hoyle copyright led to innovative books at the top of the market and cheap abridgements at the low end. Toward the end of the talk I noted: 

I must confess that I don’t understand the cheaper books as well as I do those that I have called complete. They were the product of the low-end of the trade, often outside of London. You’ve never heard of the printers. They were distributed by mercuries and hawkers rather than the retails shops. In aggregate, there are a huge number of them, but any particular edition survives in but a copy or two. The cheap bindings make them fragile. They were not collected institutionally or by private collectors. My collecting and my research are slowly turning down market.

Two new cheap Hoyles reinforce those comments. They are rare and they have led me to a lot of research. The first is the Card Games of Hoyle printed by Thomas Hughes (1825). I had seen a copy of an 1828 edition at the Bodleian Library, but the lovely colored frontispiece was dated 1825 and I suspected there was an unrecorded 1825 edition. And so there was:

The Card Games of Hoyle (1825)
Levy [2116]

The book was too small for Mary Turner's bookplate, so she folded it in half before pasting it in. It certainly has an art nouveau 1910c look to it, but I have yet to identify her.

Bookplate of Mary Turner

What is odd is that the book is 100% the same setting of type as the 1828 edition. It's hard to imagine that Hughes would have left type standing for three years, so the book is probably stereotyped. Other stereotyped Hoyles left a lot of evidence about the process. See the essay "Kicking and Screaming into the 19th Century" for an example. This book has no evidence of having been stereotyped, but it must have been.

A similar book, also acquired this year, is Hoyle's Card Games published by Richard Griffin & Co., Glasgow (1827). The book was first printed in Bath in 1824 and there are two Glasgow imprints, one dated 1826 and a reissue dated 1827 with a different title page. The new 1827 Glasgow edition is a different setting of type that the others. It is rare, with only one other copy recorded, and I snagged it on eBay for the sum of $1.00! It was in pretty rotten shape--no cover and pages that were torn and dog-eared. I learned how to do simple paper repairs when I studied bookbinding many years ago, and this was a good candidate. It's still not great, but at least it won't get any worse.

Levy [2100]
before

Levy [2100]
after

 

I said the Bath/Glasgow books were similar to the one printed in London by Thomas Hughes. How similar? The text is identical, word for word, up to a point. The last chapter of the provincial books is "A Guide to the Turf" on horse racing. Instead of that chapter, Hughes printed short chapters on the games of speculation, lottery, loto, Boston, and hazard. 

 

The similarity doesn't end there. There are some anomalies in the Hughes book (1825) that demonstrate a connection with the Bath edition (1824). Hughes has gatherings of 8 leaves and the first two leaves generally signed in each gathering. So page seventeen has a "B" at the bottom, page nineteen "B2" and so in. There are some anomalies in gathering A that make an interesting comparison with the Bath edition:

• The Bath edition has a two leaf gathering A: the title page and verso, followed by the table of contents and blank verso. The text begins on page one (B1r , signed "B") with the game of whist.
• The Hughes edition has the title on A1r and the table of contents on A1v. The text begins on page one (A2r) with the game of whist, but that page is signed "B". 

• In the Bath edition, page five is correctly signed "B3". 
• In the Hughes edition, page five is A4 and is incorrectly signed "B3".

The Hughes compositor introduced the signing anomalies because he had a copy of the Bath edition in hand! What a satisfying explanation for a signing error!

There were some other 2020 purchases that deserve their own essay.

Another 2016 Acquisition

Only days ago, I published an essay on my 2016 acquisitions. One more just arrived from Austria. I didn't include it in the previous essay because it had been stuck in US Customs for weeks due to some combination of Christmas volume and Homeland Security. But now that it is here, I find much to discuss about the lovely book.

Levy [1818]

The short title is Gründliche Anweisung zum Whist-Spiele, published in Vienna and Prague in 1821. It is an anthology of English whist literature translated into German as is evident from a phrase in the long title: "based on examples after the best information of the old as well as the new school from Hoyle to Matthews".




The binding is boards covered with marbled paper and a red leather label on the spine reading "Adams, Whist Spiele." I've never been a huge fan of German books of this era. The fraktur is a challenge for me. The paper generally does not feel good to the touch and the binding is often brittle (though not in this case). This book may be the one to help me overcome my biases--I find it rather charming!

binding

Hoyle

I cannot read the German, but the book has chapters excerpting the important English writers on whist. There is Herrn Hoyle.

Payne

After Hoyle, Herrn William Payne wrote Maxims for the Game of Whist. I discuss Payne's writing in the essay "The Most Important Hoyle After Hoyle".

Matthews

Most of Adams' book is a translation of Thomas Matthews Advice to the Young Whist Player, an important and frequently-reprinted work I discuss here.

Pigott

And somewhat surprisingly, there are excerpts from Charles Pigott's New Hoyle. New material did appear in later editions of Pigott, all published by James Ridgway after Pigott's death, but they were not about whist, but about other games. See "The Pigott Hoyles" for a list of editions of his books.






All in all, a lot for a small 196 page work! Now, a conundrum. Do I shelve it with my whist books or with my Hoyle's?

There is one other thing I find interesting. The signature marks have a different pattern from anything I've ever seen. The book is a duodecimo, regularly gathered in eights and fours. The first leaf of each gathering is signed numerically 1-16, but the second leaf of each eight-leaf gathering is signed 1*, 3* ... 15*. Only the first leaf is signed in the four-leaf gatherings. I've posted a query to book lists EXLIBRIS-L and SHARP-L to learn if this is typical of the time and location. As I said it's new to me.

There is one other 2016 purchase that is on it's way from Italy, but based on my experience with this book, I can't imagine it clearing customs until the New Year. Read about it perhaps a year from now. 

A Research Trip to Cleveland

I'm just back from a week in my home town of Cleveland, Ohio, where I did spent the bulk of my time doing research in the John G. White Chess Collection at the Cleveland Public Library.

[I also spent a lot of time with family and friends, visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and saw a great Indians' win at Progressive Field.] 

White was an attorney, president of the library's board of trustees, and a fanatic and careful collector of chess, checkers, folklore, and orientalia. His books make up the core of Special Collections at the library--the chess collection is the deepest in the world. And of course where there is chess, there is Hoyle.

The staff could not have been more helpful, paging more than a hundred edition of Hoyle for me and suggesting other items I should see. I have not yet assimilated it all, so for now I will discuss a few random items and relate them to my Hoyle research.

Challenges for the Hoyle bibliographer

In the essay "Eighteenth Century Backgammon Literature" I noted that compiling a list of Hoyle's writings is difficult because there are books which reprint his text without attribution:

Reprints of Hoyle such as Chess Made Easy and Back-Gammon present quite a challenge for the Hoyle bibliographer. The works are nowhere identified as his writing, but are clearly derived from it. None of the earlier Hoyle bibliographers (see "Where Can I Learn More about Hoyle's Writing?") have included these works in the Hoyle canon, where clearly they belong. Why didn't Hoyle's name appear on the title page?

Not really a Hoyle
Cleveland Public Library
John White Collection

I saw the other side of this coin in Cleveland.  An 1815 book on draughts (checkers) published in Albany by the author purports to contain "forty games from Hoyle, Payne, and Sturges" and would thus seem to belong in a Hoyle bibliography. Alas, Hoyle never wrote about draughts. Clearly what happened is the author reprinted material from Payne that was reprinted in the 1779 edition of Hoyle's Games Improved, a book I discuss in "The most important Hoyle after Hoyle." Does this belong in a Hoyle bibliography? Why did Hoyle's name appear on the title page?

The Rimington-Wilson chess manuscript

I've written a number of posts on the Rimington-Wilson chess collection and its dispersal first at a 1928 Sotheby's auction and then by the Quaritch firm (see here and here). The most interesting R-W item was a manuscript translation of Vida's 1527 poem Scacchia Ludus (The Game of Chess), believed to be in the hand of Oliver Goldsmith. The essays about the manuscript (here, and more recently here) have been among the most popular on this blog.

John White purchased a number of items from the Rimington-Wilson collection, including a marvelous 1885 hand list of the chess library. [Aside: There is a hand list of R-W's sporting books (hunting, mountaineering, etc.) at the Albert and Shirley Small Library at the University of Virginia.] Below is R-W's description of the "Goldsmith" manuscript from the hand list of chess books:

Rimington-Wilson's description of manuscript Vida translation
Cleveland Public Library
John White Collection

Rimington-Wilson clearly believed the manuscript was penned by Goldsmith!

A rare bookseller's ticket

Wicksteed Ticket
Cleveland Public Library
John White Collection

White had a copy of the prosaic 1826 Hoyle's Games Improved edited by Charles Jones (Jones.11). From the Longman archive (discussed here), we know that 4000 copies were printed and that John Wicksteed owned a 1/72 share of the copyright, entitling him to 55 copies. What makes White's copy special is that it still has the ticket from Wicksteed's bookshop, a rare survival, and one that I felt privileged to see.

The loveliest book...

1768 Chess in Italian
Cleveland Public Library
John White Collection

...was of course a chess item. White owned a copy of the 1768 Italian translation of Hoyle's chess (Chess.It.1), published in Florence. Although rebound, the original printed blue wrappers were bound in, giving a sense of what the book must have looked like as issued. The Florentines made beautiful books.

 

Unusual structures

Most of the Hoyles are in duodecimo (12mo) format, meaning there are 12 leaves (24 pages) to a printed sheet. They are gathered in sections of either 6 or 12. Some late 18th century Hoyles are 18mo, gathered in sixes, resulting in smaller and cheaper books. I saw two books that I believe were printed in 18mo format that were gathered peculiarly.

One, an 1805 edition of Pigott's New Hoyle (discussed here) was gathered in sections of 9 leaves. This seems completely crazy. To make things easy on the binder, you want an even number of leaves in each gathering, so you can fold the leaves and sew the book through the folds. To make gatherings of 9 leaves, the binder folded and sewed 8-leaf gatherings and pasted the 9th leaf in the middle. So much unnecessary work (though a bit less sewing than if the book were gathered in sixes).

I'm not sure how to write the collation formula for the book. Based on what I saw, I'm tempted to write 18^o: π² A²+1 B-N⁹ O⁶ (-O6) P⁶+3. Bowers, in Principles of Bibliographical Description, has a long rant against "odd index figures" beginning on page 225, arguing forcefully that they should not be used. On the other hand, he notes:

There do exist, however, a very few extraordinary books for which it would be acceptable to use odd index numbers when the odd leaves indicate a consistent method of printing a whole book and not simply of an isolated gathering...Jacob Blanck in a recent article on Washington Irving's Salmagundi pamphlets (1807-1808), which often exhibit the initial gathering in 9's and even in 11's, refers to several early nineteenth-centruy books regularly gathered in 9's. (page 228-9)

I'll look for the Blanck article and for now suspect that the 1805 Pigott Hoyle is one of those "few extraordinary books."

Even stranger was an undated 19th century New Pocket Hoyle printed by R. Walwyn in London. It appears to be an 18mo, gathered in sections of 8 leaves, 1 leaf, 8 leaves, and 1 leaf. The collation formula might look something like 18^o:  A² B⁸ C1 D⁸ E1 F⁸ G1 H⁸ I1 K⁸ L1 M⁸ (M8 missing, blank?). Or perhaps Bowers might approve the shorthand 18^o:  A² B-L^8/1 M⁸ (M8 missing, blank?), although that uses another...odd index figure. It's also interesting that the A and M gatherings total 9 leaves as well--likely they were printed together. I couldn't determine the conjugacy of the leaves in the final gathering. 

More Irish Cancels

Until my Cleveland visit, I had never seen a copy of The Polite Gamester, Dublin: printed by James Hoey, 1783 (Polite.1.3). In the essay "Every Cancel Tells a Story, Don't It? (part 1)" I showed that in 1776 Hoey reissued Ewing's 1772 Polite Gamester with canceled title pages. He did that because Ewing had died and he acquired Ewing's unsold stock--the title page would tell customers where they could buy the book. Surprisingly, the 1783 Hoey edition is a second reissue of the 1772 book with a second set of revised title pages. Hoey's motivation for the second reissue is less certain. Clearly he had unsold stock and perhaps he wished to make it look more current with a new date.

Conclusion

What makes a good research trip? Certainly the collection is most important, but a comfortable reading room and supportive staff are also important. I found all three in Special Collections at the Cleveland Public Library. Every chess (and Hoyle) researcher needs to visit the John White collection!

Advice to the Young Whist Player

I have mentioned Advice to the Young Whist Player by Thomas Mathews a number of times. In "More Hoyle Collectibles" I shown one of the tokens with quotations from the book, one that is particularly disparaging of Hoyle. In my essay "From the Pen and Library of Henry Hucks Gibbs" I was unable to show a picture of my copy of the rare first edition of 1804 as the book was out for conservation. The book is back in my possession and I'll take the opportunity to discuss the author and his work in a bit more detail. It is the third important book on the game of whist after Edmond Hoyle's Short Treatise (1742) (much discussed in this blog) and William Payne's Maxims for Playing the Game of Whist (1773) discussed here.

In the Gibbs essay, I discussed the first edition of Mathews as follows:

Only two copies of the first edition survive. Mine bears an inscription in Gibbs's hand "Aldenham. 1901. Given me by Julian Marshall." Indeed the provenance is even better, both earlier and later. Julian Marshall bought a copy of Mathews's first, almost certainly mine, at the 1900 Sotheby's auction of books from the estate of Cavendish, whom I have anointed the successor to Hoyle. I purchased the book from the collection of Dr. Albert Ferguson, who wrote a couple of bridge books and put together an important collection of gaming books about which I shall write later. When I look at the Mathews, I see a line from Cavendish to Marshall to Gibbs to Ferguson and then to me.

 The title page and inscription by Gibbs are pictured below. 

First edition (1804)
Levy [1743]

Inscription by Henry Hucks Gibbs

 

Rather than naming the author, the first edition, printed in Bath by W. Meyler and Sons, purports to be written "by an amateur." I have not seen a copy of the second edition of 1806, but I believe the title page indicates that Thomas Matthews is the author; I can confirm that his name appears on the third edition of 1808. With three editions in four years, you should have the sense that the book was popular. Indeed Jessel's Bibliography of Works on Playing Cards and Gaming (1905) lists 19 Bath-printed editions through 1832 followed by an undated 20th edition. Jessel notes that after the thirteenth edition, the name is always spelled "Mathews" rather than "Matthews." Two more of the English editions are pictured below:

Sixth edition (1811)
Levy [1023]

Eleventh edition (1818)
Levy [1130]

 The book was quickly published abroad. There is an 1812 Boston edition "from the second English edition" and one from New York in 1813 "from the fourth London edition" (although the book was printed in Bath rather than London). Boston bookseller Edward Cotton issued Mathews in two works in 1814. The Whist Players Manual: Containing Hoyle's Payne's, and Matthews' Directions, Maxims, and Instructions for the Game of Whist is a small 75 page book consisting of the whist books of all three authors. The same text and same setting of type appears as the first portion of Cotton's Hoyle's Games Improved. Cotton introduces Mathews work as follows:

Mr. Mathews (London) having published "Instructions to the Young Whist player" which have been very highly approved by good Players, it has been thought expedient to add them to this work, that the student may compare the with Hoyle's and Payne's maxims, and directions, and follow such as appear most reasonable and practical.

Cambridge, MA (1847)
Levy [1456]

Another American edition ("First American from the twentieth London edition") was published by the Cambridge Whist and Chess Club in 1847. Jessel notes an English  provincial edition (Cheltenham: G. A. Williams, 1822) and an edition printed in English in India (Madras: J. R. Hogg, 1825).

Paris (1838)
Levy [1403]

 The book was printed in Paris in 1838 with parallel English and French texts (see title page at left and opening below) with a second edition in 1848.Yes, Mathews Advice to the Young Whist Player was certainly a best-selling book!

Facing English and French text (1838)

Unlike that of Hoyle, we are fortunate to know something of Mathew's life. Emanuel Green delivered three papers with biographies of prominent Bath citizens before the Bath Antiquarian Field Club in December, 1902, and January and February, 1903.

Green (1903)
Levy [1457]

The papers were collected in Thomas Linley, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Thomas Mathews, Their Connection with Bath (Bath: Herald Office, 1903). The title page, inscribed by Green is pictured at left.




 

Much of Green's paper discusses and defends Mathews who was involved in feuds and duels with the Sheridan and Linley families. Rather than dredge up old unpleasantness, I'll focus on Green's comments about Mathews and whist:

Besides his social qualifications he has left a much wider repute, more valued and remembered perhaps than all other adventures or duelling squabbles. Bath during this time was the centre or head quarters for the game of whist and in this game Mathews became the leading spirit and authority, being always referred to for many years in all the first circles at Bath on disputed points in the game. His name is well recalled by all players to-day from his having published a little book entitled--Advice to the young whist player...At the Club established in York Buildings in 1790, and in other card rooms it was always placed ready for reference. (page 77)

Green reproduces a portrait of Mathews, shown at right. We don't have a portrait of Hoyle (see "Hoyle's Scoring Method and Whist Counters"), nor am I aware of any portrait of William Payne. I don't consider General Scott, who's portrait appears as a frontispiece in his 1814 Easy Rules for Whist (see "Eighteenth Century Whist Literature") as a significant contributor to the game. So it is delightful to have a likeness of at least one of the early important whist writers.

The New Pocket Hoyle, New York, 1803

I just came across an interesting newspaper advertisement from the Chronicle Express in New York, dated January 2, 1804:

District of New-York,
Be it remembered that on the fifteenth day of June in the twenty-seventh year of the Independence of the United States of America, David Longworth of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, viz.

THE POCKET HOYLE Containing the Games of

Whist,            |  Cribbage,
Quadrille,          |  Matrimony,
Piquet,        |  Cassino,
Quinze,          |  Reversis,
Vingt-un, |  Put,      
Lansquenet,       |  Connexions,
Pharo,             |  All Fours,
Rouge et noir,    |  Speculation. 

To which is added
The Games of Brag and Chess.

With the practice and rules as established and practiced by the correctest players.

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned."

Edward Dunscomb,

Clerk of the District of New-York.

Dec 27.

What book does the advertisement refer to? How could Hoyle, who died in 1769, have a newly copyrighted work in New York in 1803?

Longworth.1
Levy [1759]

The book is not difficult to identify. I discuss the early American editions of Hoyle in "More Hoyle Collectibles," where I note that Longworth published the second American edition of Hoyle. The first was a 1796 reprint of the Hoyle edited by James Beaufort, issued in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The Longworth edition, pictured at right, is quite rare, with the only recorded institutional copy at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Astonishingly, the American Antiquarian Society lacks a copy.

It is a charming book. It truly is pocket sized, 4 1/4" by 2 5/8", and with 13 lines of type per inch, it is difficult to read without a magnifying glass. The binding is decorated red leather, though my copy is a bit shabby and lacks the front board entirely. For such a rare survival, I can't complain too much about condition!

Pocket Hoyle, spine and rear board

Where did the text come from? That, too, is easy to identify. The book is a word-for-word reprinting of The New Pocket Hoyle...Accurately Displaying the Rules and Practice, as Admitted and Established by the First Players in the Kingdom. London: Printed by T. Bensley for Wynne and Scholey, and Wallis. 1802, a book I discuss in "Late Hoyles, Early Slipcases." The book has a lovely engraved title page in addition to that in letterpress. 

Pocket.1
Engraved title page
Levy [1728]

Pocket.1
Letterpress title page

 

There are some minor changes in the title page between the British and American editions: "New Pocket Hoyle" is replaced by "Pocket Hoyle", "First Players in the Kingdom" by "correctest players", and so on. The careful reader will note that the game of vingt-un (twenty-one) is listed only in the American edition. That is clearly an oversight by the printer Bensley, for the game does appear in both books after quinze and before lansquenet.

What is interesting is that copyright for The New Pocket Hoyle was one of three copyrights in Hoyle traded among the London booksellers at the trade sales. See the essay "More on the Hoyle Copyright." Though much of the contents were in the public domain by 1802, the work was deemed worthy of copyright protection by the London trade. So the text was under separate copyright in the United States and in England. It would be interesting to know if there were any contractual relationship between the London and American publishers, but that seems unlikely. Undoubtedly a copy of the book made it from London to New York where David Longworth reprinted the work and registered the copyright.

It is odd that the same literary work had different owners in London and America, particularly as many London booksellers had distribution arrangements in the States. The situation is a consequence of the lack of international copyright. Ireland, of course, provides another example of multiple ownership of the same work, as English copyright law did not extend to Ireland until the 1800 Act of Union. I have frequently discussed Irish reprints of Hoyles (principally in "Early Dublin Editions of Hoyle", "Individual Treatises in Ireland"  and "The Polite Gamester") where custom rather than law protected copyright. I noted an instance where custom broke down in "A Copyright Fight in Dublin?"

I mentioned that Longworth edition of Hoyle is the second to appear in America; the first, the reprint of the Beaufort Hoyle, was apparently not copyrighted. So, this small, rare, and charming books is the first Hoyle to be protected by copyright law in the United States.

More on the "Twelfth" Edition

In the two essays I have discussed the authorized "twelfth" edition of Hoyle's Games (1760) and three pirated variations of the same book. I plan to publish an analysis of the three variants to determine whether they are three separate editions or re-impressions from a single setting of type. First, I want to raise a couple of topics connected with those two essays.

An earlier piracy?

I the last essay, I argued that the three variations are piracies because they lacked the autographs of Hoyle and Osborne and because they were not printed in the usual format of the Osborne Hoyles. I mentioned what may be a similar example of piracy at the bottom of this essay. A single copy of the "tenth" edition of the individual treatise on Whist is at the British Library The authorized "tenth" edition (actually a reissue of the "eighth" edition, as discussed here) was a collected edition of all of Hoyle's treatises. I believe the individual treatise to be a piracy because it was not autographed by Hoyle (Osborne was not yet signing any of Hoyle's work) and because it was an octavo, where all the contemporary genuine Hoyles were duodecimos.

The Scottish Hoyle

In two essays (here and here) I have discussed an edition of Hoyle printed in Edinburgh by Mundell and Sons. Here I want to highlight that the Scottish Hoyle is textually identical to the three variants we have been discussing. The verso of the title page contains only the "Advertisement" and not the "To the Reader." It is not autographed by Hoyle or Osborne. It lacks the errata at the end of the book, but contains the "Two New Cases at Whist" as the last leaf of the book. While the Scottish Hoyle has all the characteristics of the piracies, I believe it was authorized. Why would a printer put a colophon on a piracy? The lack of an autograph is more likely to do geography than piracy.

A nineteenth century reprint

The "twelfth" edition was followed by a "thirteenth" with additional text in 1763. As Hoyle came off copyright in 1774 (discussed here), new editions of Hoyle appeared with the text of other writers treating other games (discussed here). Thus it is puzzling that a reprint of the "twelfth" edition appeared in 1807, 44 years later, with none of the improvements of the intermediate editions.

Games.3.R.2
Levy [0085]

The book is printed for J. Brambles, A. Meggitt, and J. Waters, by H. Mozley, Gainsborough. 1807. It appears to be quite rare with only one copy listed in WorldCat in the John G. White chess collection at the Cleveland Public Library and a second listed in Jisc at Oxford. It seems surprising that the book is listed in the three major Hoyle bibliographies (Horr, Jessel, and Rather, discussed here), but I suppose its inclusion is due to a coincidence of geography. 

Cleveland attorney and gaming bibliographer Norton Horr must have seen White's copy (or White's catalogue which must have listed the book) and was able to include it into his 1892 Bibliography of Card-Games and of the History of Playing-Cards as item 681. Frederic Jessel, who's collection is now at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, listed the book as item 826 in his 1905 Bibliography of works in English on Playing Cards and Gaming, but made it clear that he had not seen the book and was relying on the description in Horr. The Oxford copy is not catalogued as part of the Jessel collection and must have been acquired after Jessel wrote his bibliography. Rather, of course, would have had access to the White collection and the Jessel bibliography.

Two new cases at whist

Brambles reprinted the "twelfth" edition completely, even including the two new cases at whist on the final two pages of the section on backgammon. They removed the phrase "added since this book was printed off" and corrected the errata in the text. Note the colophon at the bottom of page 195, shown at right.

How did Brambles, Meggitt and Waters come to reprint a work almost half a century old, particularly one that had been superseded by so many editions of Hoyle's Games Improved? The Brambles Hoyle is a small book, 11.3 x 7.8 cm, with horizontal chain lines and no visible watermarks. It is likely an 18^o or 24^o, a cheap reprint. I looked through WorldCat and found about four dozen titles issued by the three publishers in the first decade of the 19th century. They all seem to be reprints of rather stale 18th century titles: Aesop's Fables translated by Croxall, Dodsley's Economy of Human Life, Gay's Fables, Elizabeth Moxon's English Housewifery, Defoe, and...Hoyle. We can infer that their business model was to reprint cheaply books in the public domain.

Still, shouldn't they have used a more recent text?

Bob Short's Short Rules for Short Memories

If the Pigott Hoyles are difficult to sort out, the ones by "Bob Short" are even worse. They were chapbooks (see here and here), cheaply printed and reprinted in great quantity, with very few copies, particularly early ones,  surviving.

From newspaper advertisements in the early 1780s, we learn that "Bob Short" originally published a card with "twelve short standing rules for short memories at the game of whist." (see for example, The Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser of January 31, 1781). I have located no such cards.

He followed this effort with unremarkable abridgements of Hoyle's treatises on whist and quadrille. More charming than the books are their newspaper advertisements. The earliest I have found for the whist chapbook is from Parker's General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer of February 5, 1783, pictured below, at left. Note the nonsensical claim that the book is "the ninety-ninth edition." Similar advertisements appear through the late 1780s, but if such a book actually was published, no copies survive.

1783 advertisement
(click to enlarge)

1791 advertisement
(click to enlarge)

By late 1791, "Short" advertises (above right) the same book priced at 6d., rather than 3d. as in the earlier advertisements, along with a large print issue priced at 1s. He touts the book as "Bob Short's Christmas Box for grown masters and misses" and notes, as we are accustomed to seeing in Hoyle advertisements, "none are genuine which are not signed with the author's name, profession, and place of abode." (The World, December 15, 1791)

The earliest surviving copy, not autographed, is perhaps that advertised in 1791: 

Hoyle Abridged: Or Short Rules for Short Memories at the Game of Whist. With the Laws of the Game, &c. Adapted either for the Head or Pocket. By Bob Short. Printed for the Benefit of Families to Prevent Scolding: And Sold by the Author, at Baker's Coffee-house, Exchange Alley...1791. [Price 6d.]

"Short Rules for Short Memories" by "Bob Short" is too precious a formualation, and in fact Bob Short is a pseudonym for the London stockbroker Robert Withy. Withy advertised his brokerage services in the 1791 edition, directing the public to Baker's Coffee House. His identity is confirmed in a speech delivered to the Eccentrics' Society of which he was a member, published as An Invocation to Edward Quin by John Gale Jones. (Bodliean Libary, shelf mark G.Pamph. 1386(1))

Withy followed up the whist chapbook with a work on quadrille, which was first published in 1793:

Hoyle Abridged, Part II. Or, Short Rules for Playing the Game of Quadrille; With the Laws of the Game, &c. By Bob Short, Author of Short Rules for Whist. London: Printed for, and sold by the Author, at Baker's Coffee-house, Exchange Alley...1793. [Price Sixpence.] 

The work begins with a note to the public:

The great demand for my "Short Rules for Whist," seven thousand having been sold in twelve months, has flattered me so much, that I cannot resist the solicitation of many friends to publish Short Rules at the Game of Quadrille, which I trust will also be found useful and conventient both to the proficient and learner. Bob Short.

The first advertisement for Quadrille, from The Morning Chronicle of January 1, 1793 claims only 5000 copies of Whist had been sold. It is hard to know which number, if either, to believe.

Eighteenth century copies of Withy's works are scarce. According to ESTC, Whist survives in but two copies of the 1791 edition, and one each of 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1795. The University of Nevada Las Vegas has a copy of a 1793 German translation. Two copies of the 1793 edition of Quadrille are extant. 

Freeman.Whist.1806
Levy [1465]

My earliest copy, pictured at left, is undated. It bears the imprint "Printed by J. Freeman" who's printing activity I cannot date. Nor can I identify the printed text on the marbeled paper wrapper. The paper, pictured below, bears a watermark "Turner's" and a date 1806, suggesting an approximate date for the book.

Watermark from paper used by Freeman
(click to enlarge)

Richardson.Backgammon.1818
Levy [1583]

Things explode as we get farther into the 19th century. Additional titles appeared on Chess, Draughts, and Backgammon, often bearing the name "Bob Short, Jun." as author. The books were published individually or bound together as Hoyle Abridged. They were printed so many times by so many printers, it would be impossible to develop a complete list. The most common seems to be a Derby printing by Thomas Richardson (1818?) (see Backgammon, pictured at right). I have others printed in London by Wright (1822) (below), Freeman, Shackell and Arrowsmith (1822) and in Norwich by John Stacy (1833). I've seen catalogue entries for many more: a "twenty second" edition printed for J. Harris (1809), T. & J. Allman (1819, 1820, 1824), Reynolds (1819), A. Dyson (1820), Fairburn (1820), Stacy (1820), Longstreet (1822), Wright (1822, 1823), T. Richardson (1826, 1827, 1828, 1830), Bartlett (New York, 1828), T. North (1829), Lofts (1830), and Beal (1847).

Shackell.Whist.1822
Levy [1620]

There is no reason to believe that this list represents even a significant portion of those actually published. The survival rate of chapbooks is extremely low. The proliferation of 19c variants convinces me to stop my research at 1800. Even the 18th century printing history is rendered mysterious by the card with "twelve short rules" and the eight year gap between the first advertisement and the first surviving copy.

Late Hoyles, Early Slipcases

(updated September 20, 2011) 

When you buy a new hardcover, what do you do with the dust jacket?

When dust jackets were introduced in the early 19th century, there were intended to be thrown away either by the bookseller or by the customer. When 19th century examples survive, they can be worth substantially more than the book. For example, ViaLibri lists multiple copies of Anthony Trollope's How the "Mastiffs" Went to Iceland (London: Virtue & Co., 1878) for sale in the range of $600 to $800. A jacketed copy sold in 2010 at Sotheby's for £6,250, quite a difference! For the dramatic story of a $175,000 dust jacket, see this post in the blog Booktryst.

The earliest dust jackets seem to be slip cases, also known as sheaths. A book with unprinted paper wrappers could be sold in a printed slip case that would show the title and author of a work. It turns out that a latish Hoyle, expanded by others sixty years after his first book, was one of the earliest examples. Pictured below is my copy of The New Pocket Hoyle (London: printed by T. Beslsey for Wynne & Scholey, 1802) showing both slipcase and text in red wrappers.

Pocket.1
Levy [1728]

It is interesting to note that this edition was issued in three different bindings. The publisher advertised The New Pocket Hoyle in The Hampshire Telegraph & Portsmouth Gazette of June 6, 1803, noting "This day is published, elegantly printed by Bentley, in a beautiful pocket size, price 4s. neatly done up to slip in a case; 5s. 6d. calf elegant; 8s. morocco, with silver lock." Calf would be a cheap leather binding and morocco, the finest. I've seen a number of copies in original (nearly disintegrated) calf, but I've never a copy in morocco.

A second example from another publisher is Hoyle's Games Improved and Selected as a Companion to the Card Table (London: R. Baldwin and others, 1803). This book is given as one of the earliest examples of a publisher's paper binding in Ruari McLean, Victorian Publishers' Book-bindings In Paper (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983) and is illustrated on p19. My copy appears below.

Jones.7-1
Levy [1253]

These two books illustrate the bibliographical quagmire of Hoyle. His work had been off copyright for more than 25 years. Publishers were free to reprint his still extraordinarily popular work, but each sought to distinguish his edition from the others. There were differences in text (editing Hoyle's original writing and describing additional games not covered by Hoyle), in size, paper or binding. These were just two of the many Hoyle editions available in the early 19th century and both went through multiple editions in a short time. Identifying and providing descriptions for all the different editions and issues is a daunting prospect. Perhaps you won't find it surprising that I propose limit my Hoyle bibliography to the 18th century, although plenty of challenges still abound.

What do I do with dust jackets? I protect them with covers from Brodart and you should too!