. This was boosted in England when proprietary cards emerged with nursery rhyme figures in 1883 under the name Merry Matches which, according to Bazaar, Exchange and Mart was a "newly invented game", despite its obvious derivation from Old Maid.

Rules

Earliest rules (1831)

The following is a summary of the rules by Leslie (1831):

A standard pack is used (or two if more than six play) from which a single queen is removed. The cards are shuffled and all 51 are dealt out singly; it being irrelevant if some players have an extra card. Players discard any pairs dealt at the outset. If a triplet is held, two are discarded and one kept; if a quartet is held, two pairs are discarded. Play starts with the player to the dealer's left offering a fan of face-down cards to the next player on the left. That player selects a card and discards it by pairing or adds it to the hand. Play continues clockwise in this manner, players dropping out when they have no hand cards left. The player left holding the single queen is the 'old maid' and loses.

Variations

  • A specific card is removed, typically any Queen card, e.g. Queen of Hearts.
  • A joker is added to the pack. This card acts as the Old Maid.
  • A card is removed from the pack at random. The resulting unmatchable card, the Old Maid, cannot be identified as easily.
  • The suit colours of a discarded pair must match: with ; with .
  • Players discard only after the dealer has taken a card.
  • Players take a new card before giving one up. This can result in a player being stuck in "old maid purgatory", i.e. with one card and no way to get rid of it.

Merry Matches

"Merry Matches", a proprietary card game by Wyman & Sons of London, appeared in 1883. It was originally published as a black-and-white game, but a coloured version appeared in 1884. There were 31 cards, the pairs "to be wed" including: Tommy Tucker and Goody Two-Shoes, Little Jack Horner and Miss Muffet, Father Christmas and Mrs Bond, Jack and Jill, Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep, the Prince and Cinderella, Dr Faustus and Dame Darden, The Man all tattered and torn and The Maiden all forlorn, Simple Simon and Lucy Locket, Father William and Old Mother Hubbard, Little Red Riding Hood and Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son. The odd card was Mistress Mary. The aims were threefold: to wed as many couples as possible, to make a match between Father Christmas and Mrs Bond, and to avoid being left with Mistress Mary, the penalty for which was to give every other player 2 counters. The player who weds Father Christmas with Mrs Bond sweeps the pool and those making matches during the game receive "wedding presents" of 1 counter from each other player. Scabby Queen is recorded in 2002 as a game played in Perthshire, Scotland, but also known as Raps in Derbyshire, Raps or Chase the Bitch in Staffordshire, and Executioner in Hampshire. In some parts of Britain, it is called Chase the Ace, but that is also the name of a different game.

Black Peter

The equivalent game in many European countries is known (in each country's own language) as "Peter" or "Black Peter", and is often played with special cards, typically 31 or 37, in which the odd one out is typically a chimney sweep or a black cat. The game can also be played with a standard 32-card pack from which a black jack is removed. The loser often gets a smudge on his or her face with a piece of soot or piece of burnt cork.

Regional variants

  • Trinidad: Jackass. The is removed leaving the as the odd card. The player left holding it is the "jackass".
  • Turkey: ("Priest eloped"). As Old Maid, but king is removed instead of queen or knave.

See also

  • Donkey
  • Happy Families
  • Hearts

Footnotes

References

Literature

  • _ (1821). Das neue Königliche l'Hombre. Lüneburg: Herold & Wahlstab.
  • _ (1882). Cassell's Book of Sports and Pastimes. London, Paris and New York: Cassell, Petter, Galpin.
  • _ (1883). "Merry Matches" in The Bazaar, The Exchange and Mart, 26 September 1883, p. 336.
  • _ (1884). The Furniture Gazette, Vol. 22. 25 October 1884.
  • Champlin, John Denison and Arthur Elmore Bostwick (1890). The Young Folk's Cyclopædia of Games and Sports. New York: Henry Holt.
  • Dawson, L. (1923) [reprinted 1980]. Hoyle's Card Games. Routledge.
  • Golick, Margie (1986). Reading, Writing, and Rummy. Markham, Ontario: Pembroke.
  • Green, Charles M. (1884). The Friend of All. W. Greens's Son.
  • Lasserre, Lebrun and Leroy (1853). Nouveau Manuel Complet des Jeux de Calcul et de Hasard. Paris: Roret.
  • Leslie, Eliza (1831). The American Girl's Book. Boston: Munroe & Francis; NY: C.S. Francis.
  • Leslie, Eliza (1835). The Girl's Book of Diversions. London, Dublin, Glasgow, Sydney: Tegg.
  • Mulac, Margaret Elizabeth (1946). The Game Book. New York and London: Harper & Bros.
  • Parlett, David (1992/96) Oxford Dictionary of Card Games. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Roya, Will (2021). Card Night: Classic Games, Classic Decks, and the History Behind Them Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers.
  • Sackson, Sid (1994). Card Games Around the World. Dover Publications.
  • Rules of Card Games: Old Maid on Pagat.com