To the present generation the name of Edmond Hoyle conveys but a vague
meaning, though the phrase "according to Hoyle" is still now and then used
as a synonym for correct play in a card-game.
Hoyle was in fact the "Cavendish" of his day, and was in many ways a man of
special mark. He was born in 1672, and died in 1769, having outlived
half-a-dozen monarchs. Of his earlier life little is known. He is said to
have been called to the Bar, though whether he ever practised as an
advocate is uncertain. In 1742 he was living in Queen's Square, and giving
lessons in whist-play, which he was the first to reduce to a scientific
method. He had up to that time communicated his system either personally,
or in the form of manuscript, but in that year he for the first time
published his memorable "Short Treatise on the Game of Whist." Of this
first edition only two copies (one in the Bodleian Library) are known to
exist. Its price was a guinea. It was freely pirated, and this fact was
probably the reason that the succeeding editions, of which there were three
published in 1743, were issued at the more modest price of two {vi}
shillings, each genuine copy being guaranteed by the autograph of the
author. Other editions followed, several of which are only now represented
by single copies. Of the seventh edition, published in 1747, no copy
exists. The eighth (1748) embodied, in addition to the Whist manual, short
treatises on Quadrille, Piquet, and Backgammon, which had in the meantime
appeared separately. The book was from time to time further amplified, and
the eleventh edition (precise date uncertain) is entitled "Mr. Hoyle's
Games of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess and Backgammon Complete." The
autograph signature to each copy was continued until Hoyle's death. In the
fifteenth edition it is replaced by an impression from a wood block.
It is significant of the respect in which Hoyle was held, that his Laws of
Whist, with some slight alterations by the _habitues_ of White's and
Saunders' chocolate-houses (the then headquarters of the game), were
accepted as the final authority from 1760 till 1864, when the basis of the
present code, settled by the Turf and Portland Clubs, was adopted in their
stead.
Nothing would now be gained by reproducing Hoyle's original text. In the
present volume no attempt is made to do so. Its teachings are, however, but
the teachings of the master, amplified and brought up-to-date, and it is a
fitting tribute to his memory that his name should be retained upon the
title-page.