Robert Charles Bell (1917–2002) was the author of several books on
board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a comp ...
s, most importantly ''Board and Table Games 1 & 2'' (reprinted as ''Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations''). This work won the Premier Award of the Doctors' Hobbies Exhibition, London. He was instrumental in popularizing traditional games,
[Finkel 2007, p v.] and is acknowledged as one of 11 "principal sources" in
David Parlett
David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association.
His published works include many pop ...
's ''The Oxford History of Board Games''.
Life
He was born 1917 in
Sudbury, Ontario
Sudbury, officially the City of Greater Sudbury is the largest city in Northern Ontario by population, with a population of 166,004 at the 2021 Canadian Census. By land area, it is the largest in Ontario and the fifth largest in Canada. It is a ...
and moved to England in 1928; and was educated at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire and St Bartholomew's Hospital by 1941. He became a consultant plastic surgeon and was on the editorial board of the British Journal of Plastic Surgery. Outside medicine, Bell was a polymath who became an international authority on board games and wrote books for collectors on Tyneside Pottery and Trade Tokens. His first work on games was ''Board and Table Games'' (1960), and he later produced many articles on coin collecting for World Coins.
[Bell 1984, back cover.]
He died in 2002. As of 2007, much of his extensive collection of games and game paraphernalia resides at the University of Durham.
Categories of board and table games
Bell gives origins, history and some game-playing details for some 180 games in the 2 volumes of his main work (''Board and Table Games''). He divides
board games
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a comp ...
into four main categories:
*A
race game
Race game is a large category of board games, in which the object is to be the first to move all one's pieces to the end of a track. This is both the earliest type of board game known, with implements and representations dating back to at least t ...
requires the pieces to move from a start point to a finish point usually based on the throw of dice (e.g.
Ludo).
*A
wargame
A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...
involves movement (and occasionally placement) and is typically won with the capture of all opponent pieces (e.g.
draughts
Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...
) or a special opponent piece (e.g.
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 ...
).
*A ''positional game'' requires the winning player to form a pattern or shape by merely placing (
noughts and crosses
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. T ...
and
Go are respectively the simplest and most complex examples) or placing ''and'' moving pieces on a board (
nine men's morris
Nine men's Morris is a strategy board game for two players dating at least to the Roman Empire. The game is also known as nine-man morris, mill, mills, the mill game, merels, merrills, merelles, marelles, morelles, and ninepenny marl in English. ...
).
*
Mancala games involve players distributing seeds across a series of holes and collecting the contents of holes that achieve specific numeric or numeric/positional status. Typically one wins by collecting the most seeds, or rendering the opponent unable to move.
Bell used the basic categories suggested by Murray with some alterations. Because his treatment extended beyond board games, Bell also included the categories of ''dice'' and ''domino'' games; and in his second volume added "Games of Words and Numbers", "Card Games Requiring Boards", and "Games of manual dexterity". In addition, there is mention of the subgenre of ''solitaire'' and ''puzzle'' games.
Bell drew on a wide range of sources, including
Edward Falkener
Edward Falkener (1814–1896) was an English architect and author.
Life
Born in London on 28 February 1814, he was the son of Lyon Falkener, head of the ordnance department in the Tower of London. He was educated at a private school in Kent, and ...
,
Stewart Culin
Stewart Culin (July 13, 1858 – April 8, 1929) was an American ethnographer and author interested in games, art and dress. Culin played a major role in the development of ethnography, first concentrating his efforts on studying the Asian-Ameri ...
,
Willard Fiske
Daniel Willard Fiske (November 11, 1831 – September 17, 1904) was an American librarian and scholar, born on November 11, 1831, at Ellisburg, New York.
Biography
Fiske studied at Cazenovia Seminary and started his collegiate studies at Hamilt ...
,
H. J. R. Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray (24 June 1868 – 16 May 1955) was a British educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. His book, ''A History of Chess'', is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive his ...
,
John Scarne
John Scarne (; March 4, 1903 – July 7, 1985) was an American magician and author who was particularly adept at playing card manipulation. He became known as an expert on cards and other games, and authored a number of popular books on cards, ...
, and many others; as well as his own research and collection.
Publications
Books about board and table games
Robert Charles Bell MB, FRCS (R. C. Bell)
*''Board And Table Games From Many Civilizations 1'' – Oxford University Press, 1960.
*''Board And Table Games From Many Civilizations 2'' – Oxford University Press, 1969.
:*''Board And Table Games From Many Civilizations'' (revised edition with above two volumes bound into a single book) - Dover Publications,
Mineola, New York
Mineola is a village in and the county seat of Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 18,799 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from an Algonquin Chief, Miniolagamika, which means "pleasant village".
...
, 1979. ; reprinted by Exeter Books, New York City, 1983.
*''Tangram Teasers: A Selection Of Ch'i Ch'iau Puzzles'' – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1965. .
*''Discovering Old Board Games'' – Shire Publications #182, 1973.
*''Discovering Backgammon'' – Shire Publications #201, 1975.
*''Discovering Mah-Jong'' – Shire Publications #222, 1976.
*''Discovering Chess'' – Shire Publications #221, 1976. . A second edition, revised by Ken Whyld, was published in 1979.
*''The Boardgame Book'' – Bookthrift Company / Marshall Cavendish / Knapp Press / Viking Press / Penguin Books, London, 1979. .
:*''Les Plus Beaux Jeux Du Monde'' (French edition of the above) – Fernand Nathan, 1979. .
:*''Das Große Buch Der Brettspiele'' (German edition of the above) – ?, 1979?.
*''Discovering Dice And Dominoes'' - Shire Publications #255, 1980. .
*''Oriental Games'' - Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art / University of Durham, 1981.
*''Board And Table Game Antiques'' - Shire Publications (Shire Album 60), 1981. .
*''
Games to Play: Board And Table Games For All The Family'' - Michael Joseph / Penguin Group / Guild Publishing, 1988. .
*''A Compendium Of Games: Family Entertainment From Around The World'' – Smithmark Publications, 1999. .
Robbie Bell and Michael Cornelius
*''Board Games Round The World: A Resource Book For Mathematical Investigations'' – Cambridge University Press, 1988. .
Other books
R. C. Bell
*''Commercial Coins 1787–1804'' – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1963.
*''Copper Commercial Coins 1811–1819'' – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1964.
*''Tradesmen's Tickets And Private Tokens 1785-1819'' – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1966.
*''Specious Tokens And Those Struck For General Circulation 1784-1804'' – Corbitt & Hunter, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1968.
*''Tyneside Pottery'' - Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1971. .
*''Monographs On Plastic Surgery, volume 1: The Use Of Skin Grafts'' – Oxford University Press, 1973.
*''Unofficial Farthings 1820-1870'' – B.A. Seaby, London, 1975. .
*''The Building Medalets Of Kempson And Skidmore 1796-1797'' – Frank Graham, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1978. .
*''Maling And Other Tyneside Pottery'' – Shire Publications, 1986. .
*''Political And Commemorative Pieces Simulating Tradesmen's Tokens 1770-1802'' - ?, Felixstowe, 1987.
*''Bell's Unofficial Farthings: A Supplement'' – Whitmore, 1994. .
R. C. Bell and M. A. V. Gill
*''Potteries Of Tyneside'' – Frank Graham, 1973. .
R. C. Bell and Simon Rodway
*''Fun at the Lathe'' - Guild of Master Craftsman Publications Ltd, 1998.
Edited by R. C. Bell
*''Diaries From The Days Of Sail'' (with an Introduction by Alan Villiers) – Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1974. .
Miscellaneous
*''Token Tales'' – a series of articles, originally appearing in 'World Coins' in the 1960s and 1970s, republished by the Conder Token Collector's Club from 2003
*''Games of the World'' – this book, edited by Frederic V. Grunfeld and published by Ballantine Books of New York in 1975, cited R.C. Bell and Léon Vié as Editorial Consultants.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Robert Charles
British plastic surgeons
1917 births
2002 deaths
Tabletop game writers
Writers from Greater Sudbury
20th-century surgeons