The Official Rules of Card Games Hoyle 43rd Edition Up-To-Date 1937

Fair condition, brittle pages - see all photos.

This is not one of the many reprints issued later.  This is the actual book from 1937.

This has been deemed a culturally and historically important book.

The photos you see here are photos of the actual book that you will receive. Many book sellers online post using stock photos that often don’t resemble the book you actually receive.

Edmond Hoyle (1672 – 29 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 broadly perceived authority on the subject; use of the phrase has since expanded to any appeal to a putative authority.

Little is known about Hoyle's early life prior to publication of his books. Much of what is written about him is untrue or exaggerated. The suggestion that he trained at the bar seems unfounded.

Hoyle died at age 97 on 29 August 1769 on Wellbank Street (today Welbeck Street), Cavendish Square, London.

By 1741, Hoyle began to tutor members of high society at the game of whist, selling his students a copy of his manuscript notes.  Hoyle expanded the manuscript and published A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist in 1742, selling it for the high price of one guinea.  When the book quickly sold out, rather than publish a new edition, Hoyle sold the rights to it to bookseller Francis Cogan for 100 guineas, an enormous sum for a small pamphlet. Before Cogan was able to publish a second edition, two printers pirated the work, giving the author as "A Gentleman" rather than Hoyle. The printers disguised their identities by publishing under false names, one as Webster, the other as Webb. Cogan published second and third editions and two months later, obtained an injunction against the pirates which he announced in a fourth edition (all 1743). To distinguish the genuine editions from the piracies, Cogan paid Hoyle two pence per copy to autograph the genuine works. The piracies were profitable to Hoyle, though a disaster for Cogan who was forced to lower the price of the book to match the pirates and to pay for Hoyle's signature.

Because of his contributions to gaming, Hoyle was a charter inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979, even though he died 60 years before poker was invented.

The phrase according to Hoyle retains some currency in contemporary English, indicating 'correctly or properly; according to an authority or rule'. In American English, a Hoyle can refer to any authoritative card-game rule book, in the same way that a Baedeker can refer to any travel guide.

Many modern books of collected rule sets for card games (and sometimes other games, such as board games, billiards, etc.) contain the name "Hoyle" in their titles, but the moniker does not mean the works are directly derivative of Edmond Hoyle's (in much the same way that many modern dictionaries contain "Webster" in their titles without necessarily relating to the work of Noah Webster)