Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards
1848
Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards
1848
In 1848, William Andrew Chatto undertook something no serious scholar had attempted before: treating the history of playing cards with full academic rigor. The result is a fascinating investigation into one of humanity's most universal pastimes, tracing playing cards from their mysterious origins through centuries of transformation. Chatto dismantles the wild theories of his predecessors, those who insisted cards contained secret wisdom or biblical allegories, while soberly assembling what can actually be known about when and where these folded rectangles first appeared. Yet what emerges is no mere catalog of facts. By tracing cards across cultures and centuries, Chatto illuminates something deeper about human nature: our need to play, to gamble, to introduce chance into our lives. The book reads like a Victorian detective story, with Chatto as the methodical investigator sifting through legend and documentation to separate fact from fantasy. For anyone curious about the objects that have accompanied human play for half a millennium, this remains an essential and surprisingly gripping work.
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“Mrs. Piozzi, speaking of cards, in her Retrospection, published in 1801, says, "It is a well-known vulgarity in England to say, 'Come, Sir, will you have a stroke at the history of the Four Kings?' meaning, Will you play a game at cards?" A writer in Fraser's Magazine, for August, 1844, also calls cards the books of the Four Kings, as if they were well known by that name.””
— William Andrew Chatto
“in the words of an Irish guide, when pointing out to a traveller several places which he was not wanting to find,”
— William Andrew Chatto
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Chatto, William Andrew. Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards. Lex, lex-books.com/book/facts-and-speculations-on-the-origin-and-history-of-playing-cards-abbe90e7-3600-4f5e-aaf7-1908a2bb01e4.Chatto, W. A. (1848). Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/facts-and-speculations-on-the-origin-and-history-of-playing-cards-abbe90e7-3600-4f5e-aaf7-1908a2bb01e4Chatto, William Andrew. Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/facts-and-speculations-on-the-origin-and-history-of-playing-cards-abbe90e7-3600-4f5e-aaf7-1908a2bb01e4.