Bibliographies of works on playing cards and gaming

Abstract

Note: [From title page] "A reprint of 'A Bibliography of Works in English on Playing Cards and Gaming' by Frederic Jessel [1905] and 'A Bibliography of Card-Games and of the History of Playing-Cards' by Norton T. Horr [1892]";

The centuries-long persistence of gambling as a social problem makes access to the literature of the subject of great importance to the social scientist. The two principal bibliographies on the subject of gambling and playing cards, those by Jessel and by Horr, are republished in the Patterson Smith Reprint Series in Criminology, Law Enforcement and Social Problems for this reason--quite apart from the interest which different aspects of the subject hold for students of the graphic arts, psychology and conjuring, and for historians of manners and of mathematics. There is inevitably some overlap between the two bibliographies. The great majority of entries are, however, unique to one or the other, and both are therefore reprinted here in their entirety. Many decades have passed since the first appearances of Jesse1 and Horr. Perhaps some day a compiler will bring modern bibliographic techniques to the task-enormous with a body of literature so large, diffuse, and ephemeral--of producing a work which will amalgamate the information provided in its predecessors, correct their errors and omissions, and bring their chronological scope up to more recent times. Until that heroic compilation is published, scholars can benefit from being able to consult in one volume two works of uncommon scarcity and value.