Francis Willughby's Book of Games is a book published in 2003 that printed for the first time a transcription of a seventeenth-century manuscript written by Francis Willughby that was held in the library of the University of Nottingham. The modern edition was edited by Jeffrey L Forgeng, Dorothy Johnston, and David Cram and was published by Ashgate Publishing Company with ISBN 1-85928-460-4. The manuscript was left incomplete when Willughby died at the age of 36, but even in its unfinished state it provides an unrivalled insight into the sports and games of his period. Among the features of the book include descriptions of card games that are otherwise only known from reference in literature. It also includes the first formal study of children's board games to be written in a European language, investigation of the original manuscript has revealed that some of the descriptions of children's game were actually written by an unknown child with later corrections being made by Willughby.
Famous quotes containing the words francis, book and/or games:
“Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you.... Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.”
—St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)
“I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen—but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The rules of drinking games are taken more serious than the rules of war.”
—Chinese proverb.