Wits Interpreter

by John Cotgrave

This book is a delightful 17th-century collection of all kinds of fancy. The first three editions were published in 1655, 1662, and 1671.

This book is important for the history of card games, because its second and third edition include a long section (pp. 353-371) describing the rules of four card games. Early rulebooks are rare, which makes this collection very precious.

I have found microfilm copies of these three editions: as microfilm photocopies are inconvenient to read, I decided to transcribe the text. The transcriptions are based on the second edition (1662): in a few places where the photocopies were unclear, or the text seemed to contain errors, the third edition was consulted.