It became the standard text and rules for the game for the next hundred years. Edmond Hoyle, suspected to be a member of this group, began to tutor wealthy young gentlemen in the game and published A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist in 1742. Īccording to Daines Barrington, whist was first played on scientific principles by a party of gentlemen who frequented the Crown Coffee House in Bedford Row, London, around 1728. The game takes its name from the 17th-century whist (or wist) meaning quiet, silent, attentive, which is the root of the modern wistful.
Whist replaced the popular variant of trump known as ruff and honours. Whist is a descendant of the 16th-century game of trump or ruff. Louis Post-Dispatch of a session of the Women's Whist Club Congress, April 1906, in St. History Drawing by Marguerite Martyn for the St. Although the rules are simple, there is scope for strategic play. Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries. De La Rue.Īuction bridge, Contract bridge, Solo whist, Tarneeb, Spades A 19th-century whist marker by the British printing Co.
