Yale Center for British Art

Title:

The hare and the tortoise : a new game.

Published / Created:

London : Published by William Spooner, 379 Strand, Novr. 5th. 1849.

Physical Description:

1 game : hand-colored lithograph ; 43 x 54 cm, folded to 14 x 18 cm

Holdings:

Rare Books and Manuscripts
GV1199 .H37 1849
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Ellen and Arthur Liman, Yale JD 1957

Rare Books and Manuscripts
GV1199 .H37 1849 Flat
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Ellen and Arthur Liman, Yale JD 1957

Copyright Status:

Classification:

Three-Dimensional Artifacts

Notes:

A pictorial lithographed label is pasted to the front cover.

The rules, with a briefly-told version of the fable, are printed on a sheet pasted inside the front cover.

Liman, E. Georgian and Victorian board games, pages 75-79

Whitehouse, F.R.B. Table games of Georgian and Victorian days, page 66

Seville, A. Royal game of the goose: 400 years of printed board games, no. 39

Shefrin, Jill. Ingenious contrivances, 23

Selected exhibitions: "Instruction and Delight: Children's Games from the Ellen and Arthur Liman Collection" (Yale Center for British Art, 17 January-23 May, 2019).

BAC: British Art Center copy includes publisher's original front cover of original cloth covers, with lithographed illustration. Accompanied by a wooden box used to contain game pieces (here empty); the box bears the publisher's printed label.

In this race game, the track started at the hare's rear left foot, winds about between its back legs until space 8 was reached. Space 9 then appears on the tortoise, but the numbering reverts back to the hare with space 10. This apparent confusion was done on purpose, for as the instructions direct, any player "who carries his mark to a wrong number must pay 2 [counters] to the pool."

Exhibition History:

Instruction and Delight: Children's Games from the Ellen and Arthur Liman Collection (Yale Center for British Art, January 17, 2019-May 23, 2019)

Subject Terms:

Hare and the tortoise. | Board games. | Fables. | Liman, Ellen and Arthur -- Provenance.

Form/Genre:

Games -- Great Britain. | Recreations -- Great Britain. | Board games. | Lithographs -- Hand-colored -- 1849.

Contributors:

Spooner, William, active 1831–1854, publisher. | L'Enfant, lithographer, lithographer.