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Solitaire
Facts
Solitaire or Patience
is any of a family of single-player card games of
a generally similar character, but varying greatly
in detail. The games are generally referred to as
"Patience" in British English while "solitaire" is
the American English term.
These games typically involve dealing cards from
a shuffled deck into a prescribed arrangement on a
tabletop, from which the player attempts to reorder
the deck by suit and rank through a series of moves
transferring cards from one place to another under
prescribed restrictions.
Some games allow for the reshuffling of the deck(s),
and/or the placement of cards into new or 'empty'
locations. Solitaire has its own terminology; see
solitaire terminology. There are many different solitaire
games, but the term "solitaire" is often used to refer
specifically to the most well-known form, called "Klondike".
Klondike and some other solitaire games have been
adapted into two-player competitive games.
History
Like the origin of playing cards, the origin of
solitaire is largely unknown as there are no historical
records to support it. Some scholars think these kinds
of games are largely French in origin as early English
language books about patience games refer to French
literature. This can be evidenced by the names of
some games written in those English books such as
La Belle Lucie, Le Cadran, Le Loi Salique, La Nivernaise
and others.
Napoleon was also said to have "played patience"
during his exile. Some solitaire games were named
after him, such as Napoleon at St. Helena, Napoleon's
Square, etc. But whether he played those games or
actually invented them is not known.
The first collection of solitaire card games in the
English language is attributed to Lady Adelaide Cadogan
through her Illustrated Games of Patience, published
in about in 1870 and reprinted several times. Before
this, literature about solitaire (or "patience" as
it was known at the time) was non-existent, not even
in such books as Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester
(1674), Abbé Bellecour's Academie des Jeux (1674),
and Bohn's Handbook of Games (1850), all of which
are used as reference on card games. Lady Cadogan's
book spawned other collections such as Patience by
E. D. Cheney, Amusements for Invalids by Annie B.
Henshaw (1870), and later Dick's Games of Patience,
published by Dick and Fitzgerald. Other books about
solitaire written towards the end of the 19th century
were by H. E. Jones (a.k.a. Cavendish), Angelo Lewis
(a.k.a. Professor Hoffman), Basil Dalton, and Ernest
Bergholt.
TYPES
OF CARD GAMES
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HISTORY
OF PLAYING CARDS
A
Brief History of Playing Cards
Did
you know that at one time, the king of hearts represented
Charlemagne, the king of Diamonds was Julius Caesar,
the king of clubs was Alexander the Great and the
king of spades was King David from the Bible? These
fascinating identities, along with special designations
for the other court cards, were bestowed by the French
who were instrumental in bringing the pleasures of
card play to people in Europe and the New World.
The
earliest playing cards are believed to have originated
in Central Asia. The documented history of card playing
began in the 10th century, when the Chinese began
using paper dominoes by shuffling and dealing them
in new games. Four-suited decks with court cards evolved
in the Moslem world and were imported by Europeans
before 1370. In those days, cards were hand-painted
and only the very wealthy could afford them, but with
the invention of woodcuts in the 14th century, Europeans
began mass-production
It
is from French designs that the cards we use today
are derived. France gave us the suits of spades, clubs,
diamonds and hearts, and the use of simple shapes
and flat colors helped facilitate manufacture. French
cards soon flooded the market and were exported in
all directions. They became the standard in England
first, and then in the British Colonies of America.
Americans
began making their own cards around 1800. Yankee ingenuity
soon invented or adopted practical refinements: double-headed
court cards (to avoid the nuisance of turning the
figure upright), varnished surfaces (for durability
and smoothness in shuffling), indexes (the identifying
marks placed in the cards’ borders or corners),
and rounded corners (which avoid the wear that card
players inflict on square corners).
Americans
also invented the Joker. It originated around 1870
and was inscribed as the "Best Bower," the
highest card in the game of Euchre. Since the game
was sometimes called "Juker," it is thought
that the Best Bower card might have been referred
to as the "Juker card" which eventually
evolved into "Joker." By the 1880s, certainly,
the card had come to depict a jocular imp, jester
or clown. Many other images were also used, especially
as Jokers became vehicles for social satire and commercial
advertising. Similarly, the backs of cards were used
to promote ideas, products and services, and to depict
famous landmarks, events — and even fads.
During
this same period, cycling — on unicycles, bicycles,
and tricycles — was taking the country by storm.
It was also in the latter part of the decade that
Russell & Morgan, the forerunners of the United
States Playing Card Company, decided to produce a
line of cards of the highest quality. Employees were
asked to suggest an attractive name for the new product,
and a printer, "Gus" Berens, offered "Bicycle."
His idea was enthusiastically accepted, and the Rider
Back made its debut in 1887. Since then, while the
Bicycle brand has featured dozens of different designs,
the Rider Back has never gone out of production.
Today,
people all over the world are familiar with the traditional
red or blue back showing cupid astride a two-wheeler.
The brand has become synonymous with quality and is
still "the world’s favorite playing card."
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