Coffee Table Book Party: "The Games We Played"

Margaret K. Hofer, The Games We Played: The Golden Age of Board & Table Games. Princeton Architectural Press, 2003.


This photo collection of board and parlor games from the turn of the 20th Century is endlessly charming in its own right, offering beautifully photographed gameboards and gamepieces grown exotic by the passage of time. But is also a fascinating glimpse into the beginnings of the modern middle class, with its new level of leisure time and discretionary income to spend on mass-produced trifles.


The subtitle -- "The Golden Age of Board and Table Games" -- is a bit of a misnomer. Hofer freely admits that in terms of gameplay, very few of the games of this era amount to anything more elaborate than rolling dice, advancing a gamepiece, and perhaps following the instructions printed on the space landed on. Even the more sophisticated of the games of the era are thus little more than "Chutes and Ladders" in drag.


Today, there are much better games available to people who want to exercise their strategic and tactical abilities with something besides chess -- and of course, we have Scrabble now, a major step forward for our civilization! Yet, it is also true that our publishing houses persist in pouring out dozens of worthless titles every year, most tied by phat marketing deals to movies or television shows produced under the same bloated corporate umbrella. Will these look as charming in 100 years as "Bicycle Race," a game that capitalized on the newfangled craze of the safety bicycle?



As of this posting, Amazon has used copies of this lovely book for as low as $9.74. Powells has one new copy at about $25.