Description

This 1890 game from Milton Bradley uses the Happy Families/Authors mechanism of building sets by asking for cards, but complicates strategy through a set of bonus cards.

The game consists of 95 small card slips, roughly 2.5" long by 0.5" wide. Of these, 18 contain the name of a Longfellow poem, 72 have the name of the poem and two lines from it, and five contain the names of styles of edition bindings: Tree Calf; Full Morocco; Half Morocco; Cloth; and Paper. There also are six larger reference slips with the names of all 18 poems.

Players take turns asking for a poem or selections from a poem, and when they complete a set, play it down in front of them. They also may ask for an "edition slip", and if the asked player has one, he must hand it over. If he has more than one, he chooses which to hand over.

All but the Paper slip provide a bonus that applies to all sets scored at the time it is played. Bonuses are cumulative, so a doubled pair plus two more sets then tripled equals 18 points. However, whichever player is left with the Paper slip at the end of the game cuts his total score in half. Highest net score wins.

The game is listed by Alex G. Malloy (American Games, 1999) at p. 34, #1033.