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SOLITAIRE HISTORY : |
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Solitaire card playing has a long and controversial history. For most of its life solitaire was called patience. In most of Europe it is still referred to as patience. In Spain it is called ‘Solitario’. The reference to the word solitaire in place of patience has only been around relatively recently. It is believed that solitaire games were first played with tarot cards, which would indicate that solitaire most likely preceded traditional multiplayer card games.
In its early days, solitaire was most prevalent in Europe. Playing cards were first introduced in Italy in the 1300s. During that time they also became popular in Northern Europe. There is a card game called Tarok that was invented around that time that is still played to this day. The first known solitaire game rules were recorded during the Napoleonic era. During his exile at St Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte played patience in his spare time.
Around that same time, the author of War and Peace, Tolstoy, enjoyed playing solitaire and mentioned it in a scene from his famous novel. Tolstoy sometimes used cards to make decisions for him in a somewhat superstitious way. Most early literature mentioning patience is of French origin. The names of most early solitaire games are French names as well, with the most well known being La Belle Lucie.
It is not known whether Napoleon invented any of these solitaire games or someone else around that same time period.The end of the sixteenth century was an active period for the invention of various card games. This was when the ace first appeared as high instead of low in the rankings of the cards. Several new card games were invented during this time and new variations were added, so this is likely a time when solitaire games were invented and named as well.
Publications about solitaire began to appear in the late nineteenth century. Lady Adelaide Cadogan is believed to have written the first book on the rules of solitaire and patience games just after the Civil War, but is still reprinted occasionally even today. Other non English compilations on solitaire may have been written before that, however. In England ‘Cadogan’ is a household word for solitaire in the same manner that ‘Hoyle’ is for card games.
Several other authors wrote books on solitaire around the same time. E.D. Chaney wrote a book on solitaire games called ‘Patience’ and Annie B. Henshaw wrote a book with an interesting title ‘Amusements for Invalids’. Several years later Dick and Fitzgerald published ‘Dick’s Games of Patience’ followed by a second edition a few years later. Author, Henry Jones, wrote a fairly reliable book on solitaire called ‘Patience Games’. Another Jones, not related to Henry, Mary Whitmore Jones wrote a series of solitaire books over a twenty year period around the turn of the century. Several other publishers of various game books also added solitaire to their long lists of games in their titles.
One of the most complete solitaire books was written by Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith. Their latest edition contains rules to over 225 solitaire games and was used in this writing.
Some solitaire games were invented in unexpected places. A notable inventor of solitaire games was Bill Beers. He was in a mental asylum when he invented a variation of Cribbage Solitaire. Prisoners had plenty of time to play solitaire, but were unable to use traditional cards because they could be used as an edged weapon. They were forced to use thicker tiles for cards that were bulky and hard to handle. Several solitaire games have gained fame through literature and other avenues.
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SOME PUBLIShERS OPINION ABOUT SOLITAIRE : |
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- "A game of patience has many virtues. It sharpens the wits, it develops judgement, it helps the power of concentration and, in this way, assists in the development of that elusive quality which for want of a better name we call card sense. Above all, a game of patience has a great moral value because, when it is properly approached, it calls for the self-discipline of being honest with oneself." (George F. Hervey, Card Games for One, 1965, ISBN 0340055383, p. 7)
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- Solitaires "have a marvellous capacity both to soothe and challenge the mind of the player" (Trevor Day and The Diagram Group, Collins Gem Patience Card Games, HarperCollins Publishers, 1996, ISBN 0004720164, p. 3)
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- "Patience is the mental equivalent of jogging: its purpose is to tone the brain up and get rid of unsociable mental flabbiness." (David Parlett, The Penguin Book of Patience, Penguin Books, 1980, ISBN 0140663461, p. 11)
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- "Everybody should cultivate the power of self entertainment. No matter what may be our domestic and social surroundings there come times to each of us when, unless we are able to be 'company to ourselves', we must inevitably suffer from loneliness or ennui. It is at such moments that the game of Solitaire (to which our English cousins give the very significant name of Patience) becomes something much more than a frivolous diversion." (George Hapgood, Solitaire and Patience, Philadelphia, 1917, p. 5)
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- "There is a charm and solace about Solitaire which is beginning to be more generally and deservedly appreciated. It affords an attractive pastime and a grateful relief when overtaxed by too assiduous application to business or study; it serves to fill up idle hours, and to soothe the unrest of the unfortunate victim of insomnia. It offers advantages that are conspicuously wanting in all other card games: -No need for waiting for one or more companions to make up a game, but you take out a pack or two of cards from the drawer and begin the game just when the desire to do so presents itself, -you are all there; and no opposing player to thwart your best intentions and ruin your well-planned endeavors with every card you play, -you have it all own way." (William B. Dick, Dick's Games of Patience or Solitaire with Cards, New York, 1883, p. 3)
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