Author: HOYLE. JONES (Charles):
Title: Hoyle's Games Improved. Being Practical Treatises on the following Fashionable Games, Viz. Whist, Quadrille, Pique, Chess, Back-Gammon, Billiards, Cricket, Tennis, Quinze, Hazard, Lansquenet, Billiards, and Goff or Golf; In which are contained, The Method of Betting at those Games upon equal or advantageous Terms; Including The Laws of each, as settled and agreed to, at Brookes's, White's, D'Aubigny's, the Scavoir Vivre, Miles's, Payne's, and other Fashionable Houses, &c. Revised and corrected by Charles Jones, Saq. A New Edition, enlarged.
Description: London: Printed for J. F. and C. Rivington, T. Payne and Son, R. Baldwin, B. Law, W. Goldsmith, W. Lowndes, E. Newbery, S. Bladon, G. and T. Wilkie, and C. Stalker [no date]. [1790]. 12mo, 157 x 88 mms., pp. viii, 290 [291 - 292 adverts], image in black and white of "The Draught Table" on page 194, two full-page engraved plates between pages 270 and 271, contemporary sheepskin (worn); title-page a bit soiled, spine dried, joints cracked but holding, corners a bit worn, a so-so copy with the contemporary name "B. Batt" in ink on top margin of recto of frnt ree end-paper, and another contemporary name "Jno. Forbes Shells Park" on the top margin of the title-page This is the first edition of Hoyle's Games, as revised by Charles Jones to mention golf, pp. 288 - 290. In this "favourite Summer Amusement in Scotland," the balls are described as being made of "Horse Leather, stuffed with Feathers in a peculiar Manner, and Boiled." The comment that "The general Distance between one Hole and another is about a Quarter of a Mile...," or around 440 yards. This conforms to the description of ESTC T87522, but the title-page in this copy is not dated and one of the publishers is given as "T. Wilkiz." Donovan and Murdoch 330. See also the comment by David Levy, http://edmondhoyle.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/hoyles-games-improved-charles-jones.html.

Keywords: gambling games prose


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