Like the origin of playing cards, the origin of solitaire is largely unknown as there are no historical records to back it up. There is a lot of conjecture and controversy about the history of solitaire as to where it really began. However, the first written documentation of the solitaire does not appear until the late 16th century and since then Solitaire has had a long history and, at one point, had a less than stellar reputation.
Around the 12th century, the game “Al-qirq” (the mill, in Arabic), which later became the “Alquerque” game, was the most common game until the end of the 12th century in Europe. Playing cards were first introduced to Italy in the 1300s. During that time they also became popular in Northern Europe. There is a card game called Tarok that was invented around that time and is still played to this day. Solitaire games are also believed to have been first played with tarot cards, indicating that solitaire likely preceded traditional multiplayer card games.
The French engraving of the Princess of Soubise showing her playing cards dates from 1697. Legend has it that the solitaire was invented by Pelisson, a French mathematician, to entertain Louis XIV, known as “Roi Soleil” (Sun King) . Another legend says that an unfortunate French nobleman, while imprisoned in the Bastille, devised the game using a Fox & Geese board (the Fox & Geese board has been used for a variety of board games in Northern Europe since the Vikings) . There are doubts about these legends, as Ovid wrote about the game and described it in his book “Ars Amatoria”.
The end of the 16th century was an active period for the invention of various card games. It was then that the ace first appeared as high rather than low in the card rankings. Several new card games were invented during this time and new variations were added, so this is likely to be a time when solitaire games were also invented and named.
The first known rules of the game of solitaire were recorded during the Napoleonic era. The author of War and Peace, Tolstoy, enjoyed playing solitaire and mentioned it in a scene in his famous novel. Tolstoy sometimes used letters to make decisions for him in a somewhat superstitious way. Most of the ancient literature that mentions patience is of French origin. Even the very word ‘lonely’ is of French origin and means ‘patience’. The names of most early solitaire games are also French names, the best known being La Belle Lucie. When Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena in 1816, he used to play patience to pass the time. Deported to the island lost in the ocean, he knew what it felt like to be locked up completely; he also knew how letters could comfort a condemned man. During his exile on Saint Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte played patience in his spare time. Some solitaire games are named after him, such as Napoleon on Saint Helena, Napoleon Square, etc. It is not known if Napoleon invented any of these solitaire games or someone else in that same time period.
Solitaire publications began to appear in the late 19th century. Lady Adelaide Cadogan is believed to have written the first book on the rules of solitaire and patience games called “Illustrated Patience Games” just after the Civil War (1870) containing 25 games. It is still reprinted occasionally even today. However, other compilations of solitaire may have been written before in other languages. Before this, moreover, there was no literature on solitaire, not even in books like Charles Cotton’s The Compleat Gamester (1674), Abbé Bellecour’s Academie des Jeux (1674) and Bohn’s Handbook of Games (1850), all which are used as a reference in card games. In England “Cadogan” is a familiar word for solitaire in the same way that “Hoyle” is for card games.
Lady Cadogan’s book spawned other collections from other writers such as EDChaney, Annie B. Henshaw, Dick and Fitzgerald, HE Jones (aka Cavendish), Angelo Lewis (aka Professor Hoffman), Basil Dalton, and Ernest Bergholt. ED Chaney wrote a book on solitaire games called “Patience” and Annie B. Henshaw wrote a book with an interesting title “Fun for Invalids”. Several years later, Dick and Fitzgerald in New York published “Dick’s Games of Patience” in 1883, followed by a second edition that was published in 1898. The author, Henry Jones, wrote a fairly reliable book on solitaire called “Patience Games” . Another Jones, unrelated to Henry, Miss Mary Whitmore Jones wrote 5 volumes of solitaire books over a twenty-year period around the 1890s. Several other publishers of various game books also added solitaire to their long lists of games in their titles. One of the most comprehensive solo books was written by Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith. Its latest edition contains rules for over 225 solitaire games and was used in this writing.
Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” mentions a scene that took place in 1808 where the characters were playing patience. Charles Dickens “Great Expectations” mentions the loner in his story. In Evelyn Waugh’s “A Handful of Dust,” a character plays with patience while waiting for news of a death to reach London.
In the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky [The Brothers Karamazov], the character Grushenka played a game of solitaire called “Fools”, a Russian equivalent of “Idiot’s Delight”, to overcome times of crisis. Franklin D. Roosevelt played a very popular solitaire game, Spider Solitaire. Somerset Maugham’s “The Gentleman in the Parlor” mentions Spider solitaire and cites playing solitaire as “a creepy disposition.” In John Steinbeck’s novel Of [Mice and Men], the protagonist George Milton often plays solitaire on the road and on the farm. In “Peter Duck,” one of the books in Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series, Captain Flint keeps busy playing Miss Milligan.
In the 1962 film “The Manchurian Candidate,” Raymond Shaw is forced to perform specific actions using a brainwashing trigger, which often includes a traditional solitaire game and the quest for the queen of diamonds. In the Finnish TV series “Hovimäki”, Aunt Victoria really likes to play solitaire.
Various solitaire games have gained fame through literature and other avenues. Some solitaire games were invented in unexpected places. A notable inventor of solitaire games was Bill Beers. He was in a madhouse when he invented a variation on Cribbage Solitaire. The prisoners had a lot of time to play solitaire, but they could not use the traditional cards because they could be used as an edged weapon. They were forced to use thicker tiles for cards that were bulky and unwieldy.
A famous casino is responsible for the invention of a very popular game of solitaire. Canfield, who owned a casino in Saratoga, invented a game in which you bought a deck of cards for $ 52 and earned $ 5 for each card played to the foundations. He won an average of $ 25 per game, however each game required a dealer to keep an eye on the player, so the win was not as high as you might think. The real name of this popular game was Klondike, but the name Canfield has stuck and is used almost as commonly as the word patience. Due to its difficulty in winning, the time required to play, and the lack of options along the way, Klondike has lost some popularity to other popular solitaire games. Today, most people refer to the Klondike simply as Solitaire.
Both solitaires and the reasons why people enjoy playing with these card tiles have of course changed since solitaires appeared. In today’s world, we sometimes need a break from the daily hustle and bustle and the tedious treadmill. Solving solitaires is not just a form of distraction that kills time; it is also a safe way to relax after work. Long winter nights, he helped Jack London’s characters have fun in their spare time. Nicolo Paganini, a great musician, was also in favor of solving solitaires; his dearest loner was named after his name.
A good solitaire doesn’t just help you relax and kill time; it is also a great mental gymnastics. That’s why solitaires were attractive to mathematicians like Martin Gardner and Donald Knut. As seen by his contemporaries, Prince Metternich, an eminent diplomat of the 19th century, used to sit and ponder complicated solitaires before embarking on the most difficult negotiations.
Today, most people refer to the Klondike simply as “Solitaire”. Due to its difficulty in winning, the time required to play, and the lack of options along the way, Klondike has lost some popularity to other popular solitaire games.
When we think of solitaire games today, many people would immediately think of the digital versions for computers, for example, solitaire for mac and solitaire games for PC, yet there are still millions of people who play ” old way “with a standard deck of cards, perhaps much like the deck of cards that Napoleon played with nearly 200 years ago.
