“QUIET AMUSEMENT TO THOSE SORELY IN NEED OF ONE”

JONES, Mary Whitmore. Games of Patience for One or More Players. First Series. London: L. Upcott Gill, circa 1900. Octavo, original decorative green cloth, patterned endpapers. $200.

Early edition of this comprehensive illustrated work about solitaire and other quiet card games.

This work focuses entirely on versions of Patience, or solitaire. In the 19th-century, the game was a wildly popular amusement and several notable attempts were made to create handbooks containing every variation. This book is among the best, containing dozens of helpful illustrations and easy to understand explanations. The author, Mary Whitmore Jones, included variations of Patience from all over England and America, as well as numerous versions carefully translated from French works. This book was quite popular and went into several editions around the turn of the 20th century.

Slight foxing to preliminaries. An about-fine copy.