Playing Card Books

[WoPC]

I'm putting together a new section on my website called The Bookshelf (tentative name), where recommended playing card books are showcased (and maybe also reviewed).

What are some of your favorite playing card books? I'd like to keep most of the books on The Bookshelf about the core subject of playing cards (history, art, design, etc), but I don't mind having books about card games, card magic and other sub-topics.

I have copies of A Short History of Playing Cards by Gurney Benham and Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanation of Its Many Secrets by Gurney Benham which I bought on eBay; both books are quite old, I'm not actually sure of their publication dates but they seem to be from around the 1930s. So I'll add these to The Bookshelf because they are quite interesting.

And of course The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards Paperback by Tom Dawson will be on The Bookshelf.

Also, if anybody is interested in reviewing books, let me know.

[Don Boyer]

I'm putting together a new section on my website called The Bookshelf (tentative name), where recommended playing card books are showcased (and maybe also reviewed).

What are some of your favorite playing card books? I'd like to keep most of the books on The Bookshelf about the core subject of playing cards (history, art, design, etc), but I don't mind having books about card games, card magic and other sub-topics.

I have copies of A Short History of Playing Cards by Gurney Benham and Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanation of Its Many Secrets by Gurney Benham which I bought on eBay; both books are quite old, I'm not actually sure of their publication dates but they seem to be from around the 1930s. So I'll add these to The Bookshelf because they are quite interesting.

And of course The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards Paperback by Tom Dawson will be on The Bookshelf.

Also, if anybody is interested in reviewing books, let me know.

I'd recommend updating the list to the digital version of Hochman's - it's more up-to-date, having been released earlier this year with new information not previously available.  The associated Price Guide is also useful - and updated with the new digital version.  Both are available at shop.conjuringarts.org.

One of my favorite books on card games is "The Rules of Neighborhood Poker According to Hoyle."  It's an older book, but still quite relevant - it covers the kind of poker rarely seen within the walls of a casino.  Sure, it covers 5-Card Draw, 7-Card Stud, Texas Hold 'Em and all the other common games, but it also covers the oddities like Baseball, Night Baseball and Guts - games bearing little resemblance to anything played in Las Vegas but very popular around kitchen and dining room tables all over America!  It also goes into the slang terms, play styles, even the personalities of the people found at a typical neighborhood game.  Overall, it can take a raw neophyte and give him or her at least a passing familiarity with the neighborhood game.
http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Neighborhood-Poker-According-Hoyle/dp/0942257197

[Worst Bower]

For types of cards used around the world, I suggest Sylvia Mann's All Cards on the Table from 1990. It's in English and German and is her magnum opus in playing card research.

Hochman's is the best guide for North American cards but guides to British cards are also available. Mann wrote Collecting English Playing Cards, Ken Lodge has the "Standard English Pattern" (hard to find), and Mike Goodall, a descendant of Charles Goodall, has written several books.

Michael Dummett's The Game of Tarot (1980) is often considered the most important book ever written in regards to the history of playing cards and card games (with a focus on tarot and its games). It contains 600 pages of research, much of it groundbreaking. Despite being 35 years old, only a few parts have become outdated due to new research. He published a semi-sequel with John McLeod called "A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack" a decade ago but its focus is on recording as many tarot games as they can find (around a thousand pages of them).

For a more broader history, look to David Parlett's The Oxford Guide to Card Games which details the evolution of most card games up to 1990. This is the hard cover version and is better than the paperback one which lacks illustrations. The only thing lacking is information about older Asian card games which wasn't easily available back then.

Parlett also released The Penguin Book of Card Games (2009 ed.) which contains rules for hundreds of games, some not found on McLeod's pagat.com. Get the paperback version, the kindle version has OCR flaws.

This bibliography from the IPCS website is also handy. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since 2009 and a few books may have new editions (like Hochman's). Many of the books are not in English.