Sources page biographical material

5.R. JUMPING PIECE GAMES
See also 5.O. Some of these are puzzles, but some are games and are described in the standard works on games -- see the beginning of 4.B.
5.R.1. PEG SOLITAIRE
See MUS I 182-210.
Ahrens, MUS I 182 183, gives legend associating this with American Indians. Bergholt, below, and Beasley, below, find this legend in the 1799 Encyclopédie Méthodique: Dictionnaire des Jeux Mathématique (??*), ??NYS. Ahrens also cites some early 19C material which has not been located. Bergholt says some maintain the game comes from China.
Thomas Hyde. Historia Nerdiludii, hoc est dicere, Trunculorum; .... (= Vol. 2 of De Ludis Orientalibus, see 7.B for vol. 1.) From the Sheldonian Theatre (i.e. OUP), Oxford, 1694. De Ludo dicto Ufuba wa Hulana, p. 233. This has a 5 x 5 board with each side having 12 men, but the description is extremely brief. It seems to have two players, but this may simply refer to the two types of piece. I'm not clear whether it's played like solitaire (with the jumped pieces being removed) or like frogs & toads. I would be grateful if someone could read the Latin carefully. The name of the puzzle is clearly Arabic and Hyde cites an Arabic source, Hanzoanitas (not further identified on the pages I have) -- I would be grateful to anyone who can track down and translate Arabic sources.

G. W. Leibniz. Le Jeu du Solitaire. Unpublished MS LH XXXV 3 A 10 f. 1-2, of c1678. Transcribed in: S. de Mora-Charles; Quelques jeux de hazard selon Leibniz; HM 19 (1992) 125-157. Text is on pp. 152-154. 37 hole board. Says the Germans call it 'Die Melancholy' and that it is now the mode at the French court.

Claude Auguste Berey. Engraving: Madame la Princesse de Soubize jouant au Jeu de Solitaire. 1697(?). Beasley (below) discovered and added this while his book was in proof. It shows the 37 hole French board. Reproduced in: Pieter van Delft & Jack Botermans; Creative Puzzles of the World; op. cit. in 5.E.2.a, p. 170.

G. W. Leibniz. Jeu des Productions. Unpublished MS LH XXXV 8,30 f. 4, of 1698. Transcribed in: de Mora-Charles, loc. cit. above. Text is on pp. 154-155. 37 hole board. Considers the game in reverse.

Trouvain. Engraving: Dame de Qualité Jouant au Solitaire. 1698(?).

Claude Auguste Berey. Engraving: Nouveau Jeu de Solitaire. Undated, but Berey was active c1690 c1730. Reproduced in: R. C. Bell; The Board Game Book; Marshall Cavendish, London, 1979, pp. 54 55 and in: Jasia Reichardt, ed.; Play Orbit [catalogue of an exhibition at the ICA, London, and elsewhere in 1969-1970]; Studio International, 1969, p. 38. Beasley's additional notes point out that this engraving is well known, but he had not realised its date until the earlier Berey engraving was discovered. This engraving includes the legend associating the game with the American indians -- "son origine vient de l'amerique ou les Peuples vont seuls à la chasse, et au retour plantent leurs flèches en des trous de leur cases, ce qui donna idée a un françois de composer ce jeu ...." Reichardt says the original is in the Bibliothèque Nationale.

The three engravings above are reproduced in: Henri d'Allemagne; Musée rétrospectif de la classe 100, Jeux, à l'exposition universelle international de 1900 à Paris, Tome II, pp. 152 158. D'Allemagne says the originals are in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. He (and de Mora-Charles) also cites Rémond de Montmort, 2nd ed., 1713 -- see below.

G. W. Leibniz. Annotatio de quibusdam Ludis; inprimis de Ludo quodam Sinico, differentiaque Scachici et Latrunculorum & novo genere Ludi Navalis. Misc. Berolinensia (= Misc. Soc. Reg., Berlin) 1 (1710) 24. Last para. on p. 24 relates to solitaire. (English translation on p. xii of Beasley, below.)

Pierre Rémond de Montmort. Essai d'analyse sur les jeux de hazards. (1708); Seconde edition revue & augmentee de plusieurs lettres, (Quillau, Paris, 1713 (reprinted by Chelsea, NY, 1980)); 2nd issue, Jombert & Quillau, 1714. Avertissement (to the 2nd ed.), xli-xl. "J'ai trouvé dans le premier volume de l'Academie Royale de Berlin, ...; il propose ensuite des Problèmes sur un jeu qui a été à la mode en France il y a douze ou quinze ans, qui se nomme Le Solitaire."

Edward Hordern's collection has a wooden 37 hole board on the back of which is inscribed "Invented by Lord Derwentwater when Imprisoned in the Tower". The writing is old, at least 19C, possibly earlier. However the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Derwentwater and the DNB article on Radcliffe, James, shows that the relevant Lord was most likely to have been James Radcliffe (1689-1716), the 3rd Earl from 1705, who joined the Stuart rising in 1715, was captured at Preston, was imprisoned in the Tower and was beheaded on 24 Feb 1716, so the implied date of invention is 1715 or 1716. The third Earl became a figure of romance and many stories and books appeared about him, so the invention of solitaire could well have been attributed to him.

Though the title was attainted and hence legally extinct, it was claimed by relatives. Both James's brother Charles (1693 1746), the claimed 5th Earl from 1731, and Charles's son James Bartholomew (1725-1786), the claimed 6th Earl from 1746, spent time in prison for their Stuart sympathies. Charles escaped from Newgate Prison after the 1715 rising, but both were captured on their way to the 1745 rising and taken to the Tower where Charles was beheaded. If either of these is the Lord Derwentwater referred to, then the date must be 1745 or 1746. A guide book to Northumberland, where the family lived at Dyvelston (or Dilston) Castle, near Hexham, asserts the last Derwentwater was executed in 1745, while the [Blue Guide] says the last was executed for his part in the 1715 uprising.

In any case, the claim seems unlikely.

G. W. Leibniz. Letter to de Montmort (17 Jan 1716). In: C. J. Gerhardt, ed.; Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; (Berlin, 1887) = Olms, Hildesheim, 1960; Vol. 3, pp. 667 669. Relevant passage is on pp. 668 669. (Poinsot, op. cit. in 5.E, p. 17, quotes this as letter VIII in Leibn. Opera philologica.)

J. C. Wiegleb. Unterricht in der natürlichen Magie. Nicolai, Berlin & Stettin, 1779. Anhang von dreyen Solitärspielen, pp. 413 416, ??NYS -- cited by Beasley. First known diagram of the 33 hole board.

Catel. Kunst-Cabinet. 1790. Das Grillenspiel (Solitaire), p. 50 & fig. 167 on plate VI. 33 hole board. (Das Schaaf- und Wolfspiel, p. 52 & fig. 169 on plate VI, is a game on the 33-hole board.)

Bestelmeier. 1801. Item 511: Ein Solitair, oder Nonnenspiel. 33 hole board.

Strutt. Op. cit. in 4.B.1. The Solitary Game. (1801: Book IV, p. 238. ??NYS -- cited by Beasley -- may be actually 1791??) 1833: Book IV, chap. II, art. XV, p. 319. c= Strutt-Cox, p. 259. Beasley says this is the first attribution to a prisoner in the Bastille. The description is vague: "fifty or sixty" holes and "a certain number of pegs". Strutt-Cox adds a note that "The game of Solitaire, reimported from France, ..., came again into Fashion in England in the late" 1850s and early 1860s.

Ada Lovelace. Letter of 16 Feb 1840 to Charles Babbage. BM MSS 37191, f. 331. ??NYS -- reproduced in Teri Perl; Math Equals; Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, California, 1978, pp. 109-110. Discusses the 37 hole board and wonders if there is a mathematical formula for it.

M. Reiss. Beiträge zur Theorie des Solitär Spiels. J. reine angew. Math. 54 (1857) 376 379.

St. v. Kosiński & Louis Wolfsberg. German Patent 42919 -- Geduldspiel. Patented: 25 Sep 1877. 1p + 1p diagrams. 33 hole version.

The Sociable. 1858. The game of solitaire, pp. 282-284. 37 hole board. "It is supposed to have been invented in America, by a Frenchman, to beguile the wearisomeness attendant upon forest life, and for the amusement of the Indians, who pass much of their time alone at the chase, ...."

Anonymous. Enquire Within upon Everything. 66th ed., 862nd thousand, Houlston and Sons, London, 1883, HB. Section 135: Solitaire, p. 49. Mentions a 37 hole board but shows a 33 hole board. This material presumably goes back some time before this edition. It later shows Fox and Geese on the 33 hole board.

Hoffmann. 1893. Chap. X, no. 11: Solitaire problems, pp. 339-340 & 376-377 = Hoffmann Hordern, pp. 232-233, with photo on p. 235. Three problems. Photo on p. 235 shows a 33-hole board in a square frame, 1820-1840, and a 37-hole board with a holding handle, 1840-1890.

Ernest Bergholt. Complete Handbook to the Game of Solitaire on the English Board of Thirty-three Holes. Routledge, London, nd [Preface dated Nov 1920] -- facsimile produced by Naoaki Takashima, 1993. This is the best general survey of the game prior to Beasley.

King. Best 100. 1927. No. 68, pp. 28 & 55. = Foulsham's no. 24, pp. 9 & 13. 3 x 3 array of men in the middle of a 5 x 5 board. Men can jump diagonally as well as orthogonally. Object is to leave one man in the centre.

Rohrbough. Puzzle Craft. 1932. Note on Solitaire & French Solitaire, pp. 14-15 (= pp. 6-7 of 1940s?). 33 hole board, despite being called French.

B. M. Stewart. Solitaire on a checkerboard. AMM 48 (1941) 228-233. This surveys the history and then considers the game on the 32 cell board comprising the squares of one colour on a chessboard. He tilts this by 45^o to get a board with 7 rows, having 2, 4, 6, 8, 6, 4, 2 cells in each row. He shows that each beginning-ending problem which is permitted by the parity rules is actually solvable, but he gives examples to show this need not happen on other boards.

Gardner. SA (Jun 1962). Much amended as: Unexpected, chap. 11, citing results of Beasley, Conway, et al. Cites Leibniz and mentions Bastille story.

J. D. Beasley. Some notes on solitaire. Eureka 25 (Oct 1962) 13-18. No history of the game.

Jeanine Cabrera & René Houot. Traité Pratique du Solitaire. Librairie Saint Germain, Paris, 1977. On p. 2, they give the story that it was invented by a prisoner in the Bastille, late 18C, and they even give the name of the reputed inventor: "Comte"(?) Pellisson. They say that a Paul Pellisson Fontanier was in the Bastille in 1661 1666 and was a man of some note, but history records no connection between him and the game.

The Diagram Group. Baffle Puzzles -- 3: Practical Puzzles. Sphere, 1983. No. 12. On the 33-hole board place 16 markers: 1 in row 2; 3 in row 3; 5 in row 4; 7 in row 5; making a triangle centred on the mid-line. Can you remove all the men, except for one in the central square? Gives a solution in 15 jumps.

J. D. Beasley. The Ins and Outs of Peg Solitaire. OUP, 1985. History, pp. 3 7; Selected Bibliography, pp. 253 261. PLUS Additional notes, from the author, 1p, Aug 1985. 57 references and 5 patents, including everything known before 1850.

Franco Agostini & Nicola Alberto De Carlo. Intelligence Games. (As: Giochi della Intelligenza; Mondadori, Milan, 1985.) Simon & Schuster, NY, 1987. This gives the legend of the nobleman in the Bastille. Then says that "it would appear that a very similar game" is mentioned by Ovid "and again, it was widely played in ancient China -- hence its still frequent alternative name, "Chinese checkers."" I have included this as an excellent example of how unreferenced statements are made in popular literature. I have never seen either of these latter statements made elsewhere. The connection with Ovid is pretty tenuous -- he mentions a game involving three in a row and otherwise is pretty cryptic and I haven't seen anyone else claiming Ovid is referring to a solitaire game -- cf 4.B.5. The connection with Chinese checkers is so far off that I wonder if there is a translation problem -- i.e. does the Italian name refer to some game other than what is known as Chinese checkers in English??

Nob Yoshigahara. Puzzlart. Tokyo, 1992. Coin solitaire, pp. 5 & 90. Four problems on a 4 x 4 board.

Marc Wellens, et al. Speelgoed Museum Vlaanderen -- Musée du Jouet Flandre -- Spielzeug Museum Flandern -- Flanders Toy Museum. Speelgoedmuseum Mechelen, Belgium, 1996, p. 90 (in English), asserts 'It was invented by the French nobleman Palissen, who had been imprisoned in the Bastille by Louis XIV' in the early 18C.