Sources page biographical material

Grand Eastern Puzzle

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THE following Chineze Puzzle is recommended

to the Nobility, Gentry, and others, being superior to

any hitherto invented for the Amusement of the Juvenile

World, to whom it will afford unceasing recreation and

information; being formed on Geometrical principles, it

may not be considered as trifling to those of mature

years, exciting interest, because difficult and instructive,

imperceptibly leading the mind on to invention and per-

severence. -- The Puzzle consists of five triangles, a

square, and a rhomboid, which may be placed in upwards

of THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY Characters, greatly re-

sembling MEN, BEASTS, BIRDS, BOATS, BOTTLES, GLASS-

ES, URNS, &c. The whole being the unwearied exertion

of many years study and application of one of the Lite-

rati of China, and is now offered to the Public for their

patronage and support.

ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL

----

Published and sold by

C. DAVENPORTE and Co.

No. 20, Grafton Street, East Euston Square.
The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle. Published by J. & E. Wallis, 42, Skinner Street and J. Wallis Jun^r, Marine Library, Sidmouth, nd [Mar 1817]. Photocopy from Jerry Slocum. This has an illustrated cover, apparently a slip pasted onto the physical cover. This shows a Chinese gentleman holding a scroll with the title. There is a pagoda in the background, a bird hovering over the scroll and a small person in the foreground examining the scroll. Slocum's copy has paper watermarked 1816.

PLUS

A Key to the New and Fashionable Chinese Puzzle, Published by J. and E. Wallis, 42, Skinner Street, London, Wherein is explained the method of forming every Figure contained in That Pleasing Amusement. Nd [Mar 1817]. Photocopy from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, catalogue number Jessel e.1176. TP seems to made by pasting in the cover slip and has been bound in as a left hand page. ALSO a photocopy from Jerry Slocum. In the latter copy, the apparent TP appears to be a paste down on the cover. The latter copy does not have the Stanzas mentioned below. Slocum's copy has paper watermarked 1815; I didn't check this at the Bodleian.

NOTE. This is quite a different book than The New and Fashionable Chinese Puzzle published by Goodrich in New York, 1817.

Bound in at the beginning of the Fashionable Chinese Puzzle and the Bodleian copy of the Key is: Stanzas, Addressed to Messrs. Wallis, on the Ingenious Chinese Puzzle, Sold by them at the Juvenile Repository, 42, Skinner Street. In the Key, this is on different paper than the rest of the booklet. The Stanzas has a footnote referring to the ex-Emperor Napoleon as being in a debilitated state. (Napoleon died in 1821, which probably led to the Bodleian catalogue's date of c1820 for the entire booklet - but see below. Then follow 28 plates with 323 numbered figures (but number 204 is skipped), solved in the Key. In the Bodleian copy of the Key, these are printed on stiff paper, on one side of each sheet, but arranged as facing pairs, like Chinese booklets.

[Philip A. H. Brown; London Publishers and Printers c. 1800-1870; British Library, 1982, p. 212] says the Wallis firm is only known to have published under the imprint J. & E. Wallis during 1813 and Ruth Wallis showed me another source giving 1813?-1814. This led me to believe that the booklets originally appeared in 1813 or 1814, but that later issues or some owner inserted the c1820 sheet of Stanzas, which was later bound in and led the Bodleian to date the whole booklet as c1820. Ruth Wallis showed me a source that states that John Wallis (Jun.) set up independently of his father at 186 Strand in 1806 and later moved to Sidmouth. Finding when he moved to Sidmouth might help date this publication more precisely, but it may be a later reissue. However, Slocum has now found the book advertised in the London Times in Mar 1817 and says this is the earliest Western publication of tangrams, based on the 1813/1815 Chinese work. Wallis also produced a second book of problems of his own invention and some copies seem to be coloured.

In AM, p. 43, Dudeney says he acquired the copy of The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle which had belonged to Lewis Carroll. He says it was "Published by J. and E. Wallis, 42 Skinner Street, and J. Wallis, Jun., Marine Library, Sidmouth" and quotes the Napoleon footnote, so this copy had the Stanzas included. This copy is not in the Strens Collection at Calgary which has some of Dudeney's papers.

Van der Waals cites two other works titled The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle. An 1818 edition from A. T. Goodridge [sic], NY, is in the American Antiquarian Society Library (see below) and another, with no details given, is in the New York Public Library. Could the latter be the Carroll/Dudeney copy?

Toole Stott 823 is a copy with the same title and imprint as the Carroll/Dudeney copy, but he dates it c1840. This version is in two parts. Part I has 1 leaf text + 26 col. plates -- it seems clear that col. means coloured, a feature that is not mentioned in any other description of this book -- perhaps these were hand-coloured by an owner. Unfortunately, he doesn't give the number of puzzles. I wonder if the last two plates are missing from this?? Part II has 1 leaf text + 32 col. plates, giving 252 additional figures. The only copy cited was in the library of J. B. Findlay -- I have recently bought a copy of the Findlay sale catalogue, ??NYR.

Toole Stott 1309 is listed with the title: Stanzas, .... J. & F. [sic] Wallis ... and Marine Library, Sidmouth, nd [c1815]. This has 1 leaf text and 28 plates of puzzles, so it appears that the Stanzas have been bound in and the original cover title slip is lost or was not recognised by Toole Stott. The date of c1815 is clearly derived from the Napoleon footnote but 1817 would have been more reasonable, though this may be a later reissue. Again only one copy is cited, in the library of Leslie Robert Cole.

Plates 1-28 are identical to plates 1-28 of The Admired Chinese Puzzle, but in different order. The presence of the Chinese text in The Admired Chinese Puzzle made me think the Wallis version was later than it.

Comparison of the Bodleian booklet with the first 27 plates of Giuoco Cinese, 1818?, reveals strong similarities. 5 plates are essentially identical, 17 plates are identical except for one, two or three changes and 3 plates are about 50% identical. I find that 264 of the 322 figures in the Wallis booklet occur in Giuoco Cinese, which is about 82%. However, even when the plates are essentially identical, there are often small changes in the drawings or the layout.

Some of the plates were copied by hand into the Hordern Collection's copy of A New Invented Chinese Puzzle, c1806??.
The Admired Chinese Puzzle A New & Correct Edition From the Genuine Chinese Copy. C. Taylor, Chester, nd [1817]. Paper is clearly watermarked 1812, but the Prologue refers to the book being brought from China by someone in Lord Amherst's embassy to China, which took place in 1815-1817 and which visited Napoleon on St. Helena on its return. Slocum dates this to after 17 Aug 1817, when Amherst's mission returned to England and this seems to be the second western book on tangrams. Not in Christopher, Hall, Heyl or Toole Stott -- Slocum says there is only one copy known in England! It originally had a cover with an illustration of two Chinese, titled The Chinese Puzzle, and one of the men holds a scroll saying To amuse and instruct. The Chinese text gives the title Ch'i ch'iao t'u ho pi (Harmoniously combined book of tangram problems). I have a photocopy of the cover from Slocum. Prologue facing TP; TP; two pp in Chinese, printed upside down, showing the pieces; 32pp of plates numbered at the upper left (sometimes with reversed numbers), with problems labelled in Chinese, but most of the characters are upside down! The plates are printed with two facing plates alternating with two facing blank pages. Plate 1 has 12 problems, with solution lines lightly indicated. Plates 2 - 28 contain 310 problems. Plates 29-32 contain 18 additional "caricature Designs" probably intended to be artistic versions of some of the abstract tangram figures. The Prologue shows faint guide lines for the lettering, but these appear to be printed, so perhaps it was a quickly done copperplate. The text of the Prologue is as follows.

This ingenious geometrical Puzzle was introduced into this Kingdom from China.

The following sheets are a correct Copy from the Chinese Publication, brought to England by a Gentleman of high Rank in the suit [sic] of Lord Amherst's late Embassy. To which are added caricature Designs as an illustration, every figure being emblematical of some Being or Article known to the Chinese.

The plates are identical to the plates in The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle above, but in different order and plate 4 is inverted and this version is clearly upside down.

S^y Hall. A New Chinese Puzzle, The Above Consists of Seven Pieces of Ivory or Wood, viz. 5 Triangles, 1 Rhomboid, and 1 Square, which will form the 292 Characters, contained in this Book; Observing the Seven pieces must be used to form each Character. NB. This Edition has been corrected in all its angles, with great care and attention. Engraved by S^y Hall, 14 Bury Street, Bloomsbury. 31 plates with 292 problems. Slocum, the Hordern Collection and BL have copies. I have a photocopy from a version from Slocum which has no date but is watermarked 1815. Slocum's recent book [The Tangram Book, pp. 74-75] shows a version of the book with the publisher's name as James Izzard and a date of 1817. S^y probably is an abbreviation of Sydney (or possibly Stanley?).

(The BL copy is watermarked IVY MILL 1815 and is bound with a large folding Plate 2 by Hall, which has 83 tinted examples with solution lines drawn in (by hand??), possibly one of four sheets giving all the problems in the book. However there is no relationship between the Plate and the book -- problems are randomly placed and often drawn in different orientation. I have a photocopy of the plate on two A3 sheets and a copy of a different plate with 72 problems, watermarked J. Green 1816.)

A New Chinese Puzzle. Third Edition: Universally allowed to be the most correct that has been published. 1817. Dalgety has a copy.

A New Chinese Puzzle Consisting of Seven Pieces of Ivory or Wood, The Whole of which must be used, and will form each of the CHARACTERS. J. Buckland, 23 Brook Street, Holborn, London. Paper watermarked 1816. (Dalgety has a copy, ??NYS.)

Miss D. Lowry. A Key to the Only Correct Chinese Puzzle Which has Yet Been Published, with above a Hundred New Figures. No. 1. Drawn and engraved by Miss Lowry. Printed by J. Barfield, London, 1817. The initial D. is given on the next page. Edward Hordern's collection has a copy.

W. Williams. New Mathematical Demonstrations of Euclid, rendered clear and familiar to the minds of youth, with no other mathematical instruments than the triangular pieces commonly called the Chinese Puzzle. Invented by Mr. W. Williams, High Beech Collegiate School, Essex. Published by the author, London, 1817. [Seen at BL.]

Enigmes Chinoises. Grossin, Paris, 1817. ??NYS -- described and partly reproduced in Milano. Frontispiece facing the TP shows an oriental holding a banner which has the pieces and a few problems on it. This is a small book, with five or six figures per page. The figures seem to be copied from the Fashionable Chinese Puzzle, but some figures are not in that work. Milano says this is cited as the first French usage of the term 'tangram', but this does not appear in Milano's photos and it is generally considered that Loyd introduced the word in the 1850s. Milano's phrasing might be interpreted as saying this is the first French work on tangrams.

Chinesische-Raethsel. Produced by Daniel Sprenger with designs by Matthaeus Loder, Vienna, c1818. ??NYS -- mentioned by Milano.

Chinesisches Rätsel. Enigmes chinoises. Heinrich Friedrich Muller (or Mueller), Vienna, c1810??. ??NYS (van der Waals). This is probably a German edition of the above and should be dated 1817 or 1818. However, Milano mentions a box in the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, labelled Grosse Chinesische Raethsel, produced by Mueller and dated 1815-1820.

Passe-temps Mathématique, ou Récréation à l'ile Sainte-Hélène. Ce jeu qui occupé à qu'on prétend, les loisirs du fameux exilé à St.-Hélène. Briquet, Geneva, 1817. 21pp. [Copy advertised by Interlibrum, Vaduz, in 1990.]

The New and Fashionable Chinese Puzzle. A. T. Goodrich & Co., New York, 1817. TP, 1p of Stanzas (seems like there should be a second page??), 32pp with 346 problems. Slocum has a copy.

[Key] to the Chinese Philosophical Amusements. A. T. Goodrich & Co., New York, 1817. TP, 2pp of stanzas (the second page has the Napoleon footnote and a comment which indicates it is identical to the material in the problem book), Index to the Key to the Chinese Puzzle, 80pp of solutions as black shapes with white spacing. Slocum has a copy.

NOTE. This is quite a different book than The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle published in London by Wallis in 1817.

Slocum writes: "Although the Goodrich problem book has the same title as the British book by Wallis and Goodrich has the "Stanzas" poem (except for the first 2 paragraphs which he deleted) the problem books have completely different layouts and Goodrich's solution book largely copies Chinese books."

Il Nuovo e Dilettevole Giuoco Chinese. Bardi, Florence, 1817. ??NYS -- mentioned by Milano.

Buonapartes Geliefkoosste Vermaack op St. Helena, op Chineesch Raadsel. 1er Rotterdam by J. Harcke. Prijs 1 - 4 ^??. 2^e Druck te(?) Rotterdam. Ter Steendrukkery van F. Scheffers & Co. Nanco Bordewijk has recently acquired this and Slocum has said it is a translation of one of the English items in c1818. I have just a copy of the cover, and it uses many fancy letters which I don't guarantee to have read correctly.

Recueil des plus jolis Jeux de Sociéte, dans lequel on trouve les gravures d'un grand nombre d'énigmes chinoises, et l'explication de ce nouveau jeu. Chez Audot, Librairie, Paris, 1818. Pp. 158-162: Le jeu des énigmes chinoises. This is a short introduction, saying that the English merchants in Japan have sent it back to their compatriots and it has come from England to France. This is followed by 11 plates. The first three are numbered. The first shows the pieces formed into a rectangle. The others have 99 problems, with 7 shown solved (all six of those on plate 2 and one (the square) on the 10th plate.)

Das grosse chinesische Rätselspiel für die elegante Welt. Magazin für Industrie (Leipzig) (1818). ??NYS (van der Waals). Jerry Slocum informs me that 'Magazin' here denotes a store, not a periodical, and that this is actually a game version with a packet of 50 cards of problems, occurring in several languages, from 1818. I have acquired a set of the cards which lacks one card (no. 17), in a card box with labels in French and Dutch pasted on. One side has: Nouvelles / ENIGMES / Chinoises / en Figures et en Paysages with a dancing Chinaman below. The other side has: Chineesch / Raadselspel, / voor / de Geleerde Waereld / in / 50 Beelaachlige / Figuren. with two birds below. Both labels are printed in red, with the dancing Chinaman having some black lines. The cards are 82 x 55 mm and are beautifully printed with coloured pictures of architectonic, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic designs in appropriate backgrounds. The first card has four shapes, three of which show the solution with dotted lines. All other cards have just one problem shape. The reverses have a simple design. Slocum says the only complete set he has seen is in the British Library. I have scanned the cards and the labels.

Gioco cinese chiamato il rompicapo. Milan, 1818. ??NYS (van der Waals). Fratelli Bettali, Milan, nd, of which Dalgety has a copy.

Al Gioco Cinese Chiamato Il Rompicapo Appendice di Figure Rappresentanti ... Preceduta da un Discorso sul Rompicapo e sulla Cina intitolato Passatempo Preliminare scritto dall'Autore Firenze All'Insegna dell'Ancora 1818. 64pp + covers. The cover or TP has an almond shape with the seven shapes inside. Pp. 3-43 are text -- the Passatempo Preliminare and an errata page. 12 plates. The first is headed Alfabeto in fancy Gothic. Plates 1-3 give the alphabet (J and W are omitted). Plate 4 has the positive digits. Plates 5-12 have facing pages giving the names of the figures (rather orientalized) and contain 100 problems. Hence a total of 133 problems, no solutions. The Hordern collection has a copy and I have a photocopy from it. This has some similarities to Giuoco Cinese. Described and partly reproduced in Milano.

Al Gioco Cinese chiamato il Rompicapo Appendice. Pietro & Giuseppe Vallardi, Milan, 1818. Possibly another printing of the item above. ??NYS -- described in Milano, who reproduces plates 1 & 2, which are identical to the above item, but with a simpler heading. Milano says the plates are identical to those in the above item.

Nuove e Dilettevole Giuoco Chinese. Milano presso li Frat. Bettalli Cont. del Cappello N. 4031. Dalgety has a copy. It is described and two pages are reproduced in Milano from an example in the Raccolta Bertarelli. Milano dates it as 1818. Cover illustration is the same as The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle, with the text changed. But it is followed by some more text: Questa ingegnosa invenzione è fondata sopra principi Geometrici, e consiste in 7 pezzi cioè 5. triangoli, un quadrato ed un paralellogrammo i quali possono essere combinati in modo da formare piu di 300 figure curiose. The second photo shows a double page identical to pp. 3-4 of The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle, except that the page number on p. 4 was omitted in printing and has been written in. (Quaritch's catalogue 646 (1947) item 698 lists this as Nuovo e dilettevole Giuoco Chinese, from Milan, [1820?])

Nuove e Dilettevole Giuoco Chinese. Bologna Stamperia in pietra di Bertinazzi e Compag. ??NYS -- described and partly reproduced in Milano from an example in the Raccolta Bertarelli. Identical to the above item except that it is produced lithographically, the text under the cover illustration has been redrawn, the page borders, the page numbers and the figure numbers are a little different. Milano's note 5 says the dating of this is very controversial. Apparently the publisher changed name in 1813, and one author claims the book must be 1810. Milano opts for 1813? but feels this is not consistent with the above item. From Slocum's work and the examples above, it seems clear it must be 1818?

Supplemento al nuovo giuoco cinese. Fratelli Bettalli, Milan, 1818. ??NYS -- described in Milano, who says it has six plates and the same letters and digits as Al Gioco Cinese Chiamato Il Rompicapo Appendice.

Giuoco Cinese Ossia Raccolta di 364. Figure Geometrica [last letter is blurred] formate con un Quadrato diviso in 7. pezzi, colli quali si ponno formare infinite Figure diversi, come Vuomini[sic], Bestie, Ucelli[sic], Case, Cocchi, Barche, Urne, Vasi, ed altre suppelletili domestiche: Aggiuntovi l'Alfabeto, e li Numeri Arabi, ed altre nuove Figure. Agapito Franzetti alle Convertite, Rome, nd [but 1818 is written in by hand]. Copy at the Warburg Institute, shelf mark FMH 4050. TP & 30 plates. It has alternate openings blank, apparently to allow you to draw in your solutions, as an owner has done in a few cases. The first plate shows the solutions with dotted lines, otherwise there are no solutions. There is no other text than on the TP, except for a florid heading Alfabeto on plate XXVIII. The diagrams have no numbers or names. The upper part of the TP is a plate of three men, intended to be Orientals, in a tent? The one on the left is standing and cutting a card marked with the pieces. The man on the right is sitting at a low table and playing with the pieces. He is seated on a box labelled ROMPI CAPO. A third man is seated behind the table and watching the other seated man. On the ground are a ruler, dividers and right angle. The Warburg does not know who put the date 1818 in the book, but the book has a purchase note showing it was bought in 1913. James Dalgety has the only other copy known. Sotheby's told him that Franzetti was most active about 1790, but Slocum finds Sotheby's is no longer very definite about this. I thought it possible that a page was missing at the beginning which gave a different form of the title, but Dalgety's copy is identical to this one. Mario Velucchi says it is not listed in a catalogue of Italian books published in 1800-1900. The letters and numbers are quite different to those shown in Elffers and the other early works that I have seen, but there are great similarities to The New and Fashionable Chinese Puzzle, 1817 (check which??), and some similarities to Al Gioco Cinese above. I haven't counted the figures to verify the 364. Mentioned in Milano, based on the copy I sent to Dario Uri.

Jeu du Casse Tete Russe. 1817? ??NYS -- described and partly reproduced in Milano from an example in the Raccolta Bertarelli but which has only four cards. Here the figures are given anthropomorphic or architectonic shapes. There are four cards on one coloured sheet and each card has a circle of three figures at the top with three more figures along the bottom. Each card has the name of the game at the top of the circle and "les secrets des Chinois dévoliés" and "casse tête russe" inside and outside the bottom of the circle. The figures are quite different than in the following item.

Nuovo Giuoco Russo. Milano presso li Frat. Bettalli Cont. del Cappello. [Frat. is an abbreviation of Fratelli (Brothers) and Cont. is an abbreviation of Contrade (road).] Box, without pieces, but with 16 cards of problems (one being examples) and instruction sheet (or leaflet). ??NYS - described by Milano with reproductions of the box cover and four of the cards. This example is in the Raccolta Bertarelli. Box shows a Turkish(?) man handing a box to another. On the first card is given the title and publisher in French: Le Casse-Tête Russe Milan, chez les Fr. Bettalli, Rue du Chapeau. The instruction sheet says that the Giuoco Chinese has had such success in the principal cities of Europe that a Parisian publisher has conceived another game called the Casse Tête Russe and that the Brothers Bettalli have hurried to produce it. Each card has four problems where the figures are greatly elaborated into architectonic forms, very like those in Metamorfosi, below. Undated, but Milano first gives 1815 1820, and feels this is closely related to Metamorfosi and similar items, so he concludes that it is 1818 or 1819, and this seems to be as correct as present knowledge permits. The figures are quite different than in the French version above.

Metamorfosi del Giuoco detto l'Enimma Chinese. Firenze 1818 Presso Gius. Landi Libraio sul Canto di Via de Servi. Frontispiece shows an angel drawing a pattern on a board which has the seven pieces at the top. The board leans against a plinth with the solution for making a square shown on it. Under the drawing is A. G. inv. Milano reproduces this plate. One page of introduction, headed Idea della Metamorfosi Imaginata dell'Enimma Chinese. 100 shapes, some solved, then with elegant architectonic drawings in the same shapes, signed Gherardesce inv: et inc: Milano identifies the artist as Alessandro Gherardesca (1779-1852), a Pisan architect. See S&B, pp. 24 25.

Grand Jeu du Casse Tête Français en X. Pieces. ??NYS -- described and partly reproduced in Milano, who says it comes from Paris and dates it 1818? The figures are anthropomorphic and are most similar to those in Jeu du Casse Tete Russe.

Grande Giuocho del Rompicapo Francese. Milano presso Pietro e Giuseppe Vallardi Contrada di S. Margherita N^o 401(? my copy is small and faint). ??NYS -- described and partly reproduced in Milano, who dates it as 1818-1820. Identical problems as in the previous item, but the figures have been redrawn rather than copied exactly.

Ch'i Ch'iao pan. c1820. (Bibliothek Leiden 6891; Antiquariat Israel, Amsterdam.) ??NYS (van der Waals).

Le Veritable Casse tete, ou Enigmes chinoises. Canu Graveur, Paris, c1820. BL. ??NYS (van der Waals).

L'unico vero Enimma Chinese Tradotto dall'originale, pubblicato a Londra, da J. Barfield. Florence, [1820?]. [Listed in Quaritch's catalogue 646 (1947) item 699.)

A tangram appears in Pirnaisches Wochenblatt of 16 Dec 1820. ??NYS -- described in Slocum, p. 60.

Ch'i Ch'iao ch'u pien ho pi. After 1820. (Bibliothek Leiden 6891.) ??NYS (van der Waals). 476 examples.

Nouveau Casse Tête Français. c1820 (according to van der Waals). Reproduced in van der Waals, but it's not clear how the pages are assembled. Milano dates it a c1815 and indicates it is 16 cards, but van der Waals looks like it may have been a booklet of 16 pp with TP, example page and end page. The 16 pp have 80 problems.

Jerry Slocum has sent 2 large pages with 58 figurative shapes which are clearly the same pictures. The instructions are essentially the same, but are followed by rules for a Jeu de Patience on the second page and there is a 6 x 6 table of words on the first page headed "Morales trouvées dans les ruines de la célébres Ville de Persépolis ..." which one has to assemble into moral proverbs. It looks like these are copies of folding plates in some book of games.

Chinese Puzzle Georgina. A. & S. Jos^h Myers, & C^o 144, Leadenhall Street, London. Ganton Litho. 81 examples on 8 plates with elegant TP. Pages are one-sided sheets, sewn in the middle, but some are upside down. Seen at BL (1578/4938).

Bestelmeier, 1823. Item 1278: Chinese Squares. It is not in the 1812 catalogue.

Slocum. Compendium. Shows the above Bestelmeier entry.

Anonymous. Ch'i ch'iao t'u ho pi (Harmoniously combined book of Tangram problems) and Ch'i ch'iao t'u chieh (Tangram solutions). Two volumes of tangrams and solutions with no title page, Chinese labels of the puzzles, in Chinese format (i.e. printed as long sheets on thin paper, accordion folded and stitched with ribbon. Nd [c1820s??], stiff card covers with flyleaves of a different paper, undoubtedly added later. 84 pages in each volume, containing 334 problems and solutions. With ownership stamp of a cartouche enclosing EWSHING, probably a Mr. E. W. Shing. Slocum says this is a c1820s reprint of the earliest Chinese tangram book which appeared in 1813 & 1815. This version omits the TP and opening text. I have a photocopy of the opening material from Slocum. The original problem book had a preface by Sang hsia K'o, which was repeated in the solution book with the same date. Includes all the problems of Shichi-kou-zu Gappeki, qv.

New Series of Ch'i ch'iau puzzles. Printed by Lou Chen wan, Ch'uen Liang, January 1826. ??NYS. (Copy at Dept. of Oriental Studies, Durham Univ., cited in R. C. Bell; Tangram Teasers.)

Neues chinesisches Rätselspiel für Kinder, in 24 bildlichen und alphabetischen Darstellungen. Friese, Pirna. Van der Waals, copying Santi, gives c1805, but Slocum, p. 60, reports that it first appears in Pirnaisches Wochenblatt of 19 Dec 1829, though there is another tangram in the issue of 16 Dec 1820. ??NYS.

Child. Girl's Own Book. 1833: 85; 1839: 72; 1842: 156. "Chinese Puzzles -- These consist of pieces of wood in the form of squares, triangles, &c. The object is to arrange them so as to form various mathematical figures."

Anon. Edo Chiekata (How to Learn It??) (In Japanese). Jan 1837, 19pp, 306 problems. (Unclear if this uses the Tangram pieces.) Reprinted in the same booklet as Sei Shōnagon, on pp. 37 55.

A Grand Eastern Puzzle. C. Davenport & Co., London. Nd. ??NYS (van der Waals). (Dalgety has a copy and gives C. Davenporte (??SP) and Co., No. 20, Grafton Street, East Euston Square. Chinese pages dated 1813 in European binding with label bearing the above information.)

Augustus De Morgan. On the foundations of algebra, No. 1. Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 7 (1842) 287-300. ??NX. On pp. 289, he says "the well-known toy called the Chinese Puzzle, in which a prescribed number of forms are given, and a large number of different arrangements, of which the outlines only are drawn, are to be produced."

Crambrook. 1843. P. 4, no. 4: Chinese Puzzle. Chinese Books, thirteen numbers. Though not illustrated, this seems likely to be the Tangrams -- ??

Boy's Own Book. 1843 (Paris): 439.

No. 19: The Chinese Puzzle. Instructions give five shapes and say to make one copy of some and two copies of the others. As written, this has two medium sized triangles instead of two large ones, though it is intended to be the tangrams. 11 problem shapes given, no answers. Most of the shapes occur in earlier tangram collections, particularly in A New Invented Chinese Puzzle. "The puzzle may be purchased, ..., at Mr. Wallis's, Skinner street, Snow hill, where numerous books, containing figures for this ingenious toy may also be obtained." = Boy's Treasury, 1844, pp. 426-427, no. 16. It is also reproduced, complete with the error, but without the reference to Wallis, as: de Savigny, 1846, pp. 355-356, no. 14: Le casse-tête chinois; Magician's Own Book, 1857, prob. 49, pp. 289-290; Landells, Boy's Own Toy-Maker, 1858, pp. 139-140; Book of 500 Puzzles, 1859, pp. 103 104; Boy's Own Conjuring Book, 1860, pp. 251-252; Wehman, New Book of 200 Puzzles, 1908, pp. 34 35.

No. 20: The Circassian puzzle. "This is decidedly the most interesting puzzle ever invented; it is on the same principle, but composed of many more pieces than the Chinese puzzle, and may consequently be arranged in more intricate figures. ..." No pieces or problems are shown. In the next problem, it says: "This and the Circassian puzzle are published by Mr. Wallis, Skinner-street, Snow-hill." = Boy's Treasury, 1844, p. 427, no. 17. = de Savigny, 1846, p. 356, no. 15: Le problème circassien, but the next problem omits the reference to Wallis.

Although I haven't recorded a Circassian puzzle yet -- cf in 6.S.2 -- I have just seen that the puzzle succeeding The Chinese Puzzle in Wehman, New Book of 200 Puzzles, 1908, pp. 35-36, is called The Puzzle of Fourteen which might be the Circassian puzzle. Taking a convenient size, this has two equilateral triangles of edge 1 and four each of the following: a 30^o-60^o-90^o triangle with edges 2, 1, 3; a parallelogram with angles 60^o and 120^o with edges 1 and 2; a trapezium with base angles 60^o and 60^o, with lower and upper base edges 2 and 1, height 3/4 and slant edges 1/2 and 3/2. All 14 pieces make a rectangle 23 by 4.