The importance of London in the history of British printed games

This short chapter provides an overview of the history of British games that occupies the next two chapters. It is complemented by an appendix that lists, following the research of John Spear, all known British printed board games up to about 1870. The history of British printed board games is essentially the history of games published in London, with no more than a handful of exceptions. There is no equivalent of the very significant provincial production that provided France with games cheaper than the up-market Paris games. Furthermore, the great majority of British games are British inventions: though the Game of the Goose and the Game of the Snake were imported early in the history, there is no evidence of systematic adaption of laterinvented games from Europe, though there are a few interesting exceptions. Those that are significant in the history of the development of British games are highlighted in this overview.

The three games of popular amusement in England from 1600 to 1800

England participated in the general pan-European diffusion of the Game of the Goose from Italy at the end of the sixteenth century. The first recorded introduction of the Game of the Goose to England was in 1597, when the game was registered at Stationers’ Hall. From then on, for some two hundred years, this game became a mainstay of popular amusement and gambling. The track was invariably based closely on the classic 63-space game. The only significant innovation made by the English publishers was in the incidental iconography used to decorate the game sheet, when distinctive portrait medallions were introduced to provide an element of topicality. By 1800, the popularity of the Game of the Goose had waned and though attempts were made thereafter to re-introduce it, particularly using visually-attractive tracks formed in the shape of a goose, it was largely ousted by other race games of English invention.

The second game of popular amusement during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the Game of Cupid or of the Snake: this was essentially the same game as discussed in Chapter 3, Section 6, though stripped of the text explaining its numerological and symbolic significance.