I found this one in a rare book store in Portland this past week and have become rather obsessed with it! There is no title page or publisher's information inside so I'm not certain of the date, but between the hand laid type and the engravings and the embossed spine, I'm guessing 1840s or 50s, and British. What's fascinating is the very elaborate and often quite fabulous nature of the games described--mostly parlor type games that range from an early version of duck duck goose to performative word games where each player assumes the name of a type of bird, say, or a profession, and each has to make recitations according to a very particular set of rules, often involving extensive recall of the names and roles and hierarchy of everyone else. It makes for great reading, and would be more fun to actually play some of these, many of them I think as good for adult cocktail parties as kid's birthdays. Later in the book is a section of advice for children, from how to treat elders to how to take care of fingernails and clean teeth. Quite a lesson in Victorian morals and manners, and great fun. I can find no other copy or mention of this book out there anywhere.
4 3/4” x 4 1/8” x 3/4”; 96 pp and in very good condition. Some fading and stains to the cloth covered board covers, but inside clean (excepting a name written on one of the end pages and a few small pencil marks here and there) and bright with binding in very good shape.
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