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USBGF -- Would Edmond Hoyle Esq be eligible for consideration?

Posted By: David Levy
Date: Saturday, 24 September 2016, at 4:53 p.m.

In Response To: USBGF -- Would Edmond Hoyle Esq be eligible for consideration? (Rick Janowski)

I actually did nominate Hoyle this year. Hoyle wrote the first instructional book on backgammon in 1743. If you bought any backgammon books in North America in the 18th, 19th, or early 20th century, they would have been by Hoyle or at least derived from his writings.

Check out my Hoyle bibliography (in progress) here and search for "backgammon". British editions of Hoyle were imported and offered for sale as early as the 1750s. The first Hoyle published in the US is dated 1796 and it includes Hoyle's Backgammon.

Later American works published by Maxwell (1805), Cotton (1814), Waite (1816-19), Long (1821-9), Borradaile (1830-49 some of which show Locken or Cowperthwait as publisher), all reprint Hoyle's work, sometimes with edits. The same story continues well into the 20th century, although I have not captured many of the later editions in the bibliography.

I'm not aware of any original American backgammon literature until 1928.

Hoyle is the guy for nearly 200 years!

Ironically, Hoyle is in the Poker Hall of Fame although poker did not exist in his lifetime. Surely we can do better!

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