Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Facts and speculations on the origin and history of playing cards

Facts and speculations on the origin and history of playing cards

Andrew Chatto, William

Paperback

General Antiques & CollectiblesGeneral World HistoryGeneral Card Games

ISBN10: 9353801095
ISBN13: 9789353801090
Publisher: Alpha Edition
Published: Jul 1 2019
Pages: 410
Weight: 1.14
Height: 0.91 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
From tavern tables to royal courts, playing cards have always been more than pastime. Cards carry centuries of secrets. In Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards, William Andrew Chatto follows their trail across Europe, weighing evidence, legends, and surviving decks with an antiquarian's eye and a storyteller's pace. Part antiquarian history reference, part illustrated card history, it explores the origins of playing cards, early card game symbolism, and the practical arts of printing and cardmaking that helped images travel faster than ideas. Chatto writes as a Victorian scholar with a lively curiosity, offering a scholarly cultural history of medieval European leisure and Renaissance Europe games, and tracing connections to tarot and card history as tastes, politics, and satire found their way into suit signs and court figures. The result is a playing card collectors guide and a research source for historians of popular culture, design, and the wider history of board games, yet it remains engrossing for any reader who has ever shuffled a deck and wondered where it came from. Debates over Eastern and European beginnings sit beside glimpses of guild life and close attention to the language of suits and trumps. A classic of English card scholarship, cited for many generations wherever games meet art history and material culture. Republished by Alpha Editions in a careful modern edition, this volume preserves the spirit of the original while making it effortless to enjoy today -- a heritage title prepared for readers and collectors alike.

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