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Edmond Hoyle

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Edmond Hoyle
English card game authority, "The Father of Whist"
Born unknown
unknown, England
Died 29 August 1769
London, England

Edmond Hoyle (sometimes Edmund Hoyle) (1672 - August 29, 1769)

Trained to become a barrister, in 1741 Hoyle began working as a Whist tutor to members of high society. Along with personal instruction, he sold a short booklet on the game to his clients, describing his basic approaches to Whist. The booklet became quite popular, and unauthorized copies of it were circulated about London. To prevent this, Hoyle published A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist in 1742, copyrighting his work.

Because of his success, Hoyle followed with similar treatises on Backgammon, Chess, Quadrille, Piquet, and Brag. In 1750, a single compendium of the these was published.

The first fifteen editions of Hoyles' works are now extremely rare and mostly only to be found in the hands of collectors. Only two copies of Hoyle's original work on Whist (the first edition) are known to still exist (one of them is in the Bodleian Library) and only one copy of his work on Backgammon (at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center).

A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist was regarded as authoritative until 1864, after which time they have been superseded by the new rules adopted by the Arlington and Portland clubs in that year. The weight of his authority is indicated by the phrase "according to Hoyle" which doubtless first applied to Whist, has gained currency as a general proverb.

Hoyle died on August 29, 1769.

Many of modern card game rule books contain the word "Hoyle" in the title, but the moniker does not mean that the works are derivative of Edmond Hoyle's. Because of his contributions to gaming, he was a charter inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.

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Last updated: 05-03-2005 09:00:33