''The Compleat Gamester'', first published in 1674, is one of the earliest known English-language games

compendia A compendium (plural: compendia or compendiums) is a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may concisely summarize a larger work. In most cases, the body of knowledge will concern a s ...

. It was published anonymously, but later attributed to

Charles Cotton Charles Cotton (28 April 1630 – 16 February 1687) was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to ''The Compleat Angler'', and for the influential ''The Comp ...

(1630–1687). Further editions appeared in the period up to 1754 before it was eclipsed by ''Mr. Hoyle's Games'' by

Edmond Hoyle Edmond Hoyle (167229 August 1769) was an English writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games. The phrase "according to Hoyle" (meaning "strictly according to the rules") came into the language as a reflection of his gene ...

(1672–1769).

History

In the mid-17th century, game literature in England took off. Initially these were translations of French books, for example on

Piquet Piquet (; ) is an early 16th-century plain-trick card game for two players that became France's national game. David Parlett calls it a "classic game of relatively great antiquity... still one of the most skill-rewarding card games for two" but ...

, but later more original publications appeared. The most successful of these was ''The Compleat Gamester'', which was first published anonymously in 1674, but was attributed during the 18th century to Charles Cotton. It included instructions on how to play

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

, trucks,

bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

and

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

, "together with all manner of usual and most gentile games either on cards or

dice Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing g ...

," as well as "the arts and mysteries" of riding,

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific goa ...

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

and

cock-fighting A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or ente ...

Editions

Charles Cotton died in 1687, so subsequent editions were edited by other writers. * 1674
''The Compleat Gamester''
A.M, London. Charles Cotton. * 1676: ''The Compleat Gamester'', 2nd edn. Charles Cotton. * 1709: ''The Compleat Gamester''. Brome, London. Unknown editor. * 1721: ''The Complete Gamester''. J. Wilford, London. Seymour * 1725: ''The Compleat Gamester'', 5th edn with additions. J. Wilford, London. Unknown ed. * 1726: ''The Compleat Gamester'', 6th edn with additions. Wilford, London. Unknown ed. * 1734: ''The Compleat Gamester'', 5th edn. E. Curll / J. Wilford. London. Edited by Richard Seymour. * 1739: ''The Compleat Gamester'', 6th edn. Curll/Hodges, London. Edited by Richard Seymour. * 1750: ''The Compleat Gamester'', 7th edn. J. Hodges, London. Edited by Richard Seymour. * 1754: ''The Compleat Gamester'', 8th edn. J. Hodges, London. Edited by Charles Johnson.

Footnotes

References

Literature

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Compleat Gamester, The English non-fiction books 17th-century books