Victorian Card Games

Cast member Allen Hopkins compiled this entry on Victorian Card Games. Card games and their often arbitrary rules are a key organizing principle in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 

A sample of the cards in an Old Maid deck.

 Many card games that we all play today were created and extremely popular in the Victorian era. Some of the ones that I discovered include Chemin de fer, Cribbage, Ecarte, Faro, Loo and Whist. Old Maid was one of the most popular. Old Maid is a term that refers to an unmarried and childless woman or a "spinster." It can also mean an unpopped kernel in a pot of popcorn and was used as the title of a play by Arthur Murphy in 1761. Unlike modern playing cards with suits on them, most of these decks featured characters such as a butcher, a butcher’s wife, a tailor, a tailor’s wife, and one “old maid” card in the deck. Many Victorians played these card games in gambling parlors (or parlours) usually after dinner, and children were also allowed. One of these games, Faro, was very popular in the American West during this time. Playing in these parlors was a fun after-dinner activity for everyone. Victorians played card games but also played guessing games that involved a lot of conversation, blindfolding, and physical contact (“racy games”). In fact, Lewis Carroll had invented his own card game, called Court Circular, which he developed for two years and successfully published in 1862.

Victorian card players in the parlour.