I am introducing two early card games, both copyrighted in 1894, whose relevance to the playing card collecting world has to do with their well-known Bicycle back designs, both of which were introduced three years earlier in 1891.
The first game is entitled "Pronouncit" and consists of 50 cards, each containing ten words which are to be pronounced, hopefully correctly, by the person holding that card. There is also an accompanying book of instructions, shown in the second photo together with the red Acorn back design and a sample of the front of one of the fifty game cards. The first photo shows the front of the original box, unfortunately with old tape on it. This educational game is by J.W. Howell of Bellaire, Ohio.
The second game, which I find to be more interesting because this deck can also be used to play standard card games, is entitled "Literary Whist - Shakespeare" and consists of 52 cards plus a title card that could also be used as a joker, if needed (please see the third photo below). There is an accompanying single folded sheet of instructions and this game comes in a dark red 2-piece original box in the style of some of the early decks issued by National PCC or like the ones made for the Tiffany transformation deck or the Civil War Union cards. The "suits" in this deck are four of Shakespeare's plays as shown on the title card. The cards in each "suit", or play, run from A-K, as they would in any standard deck and each "suit" is printed in it's own color, so this could even be considered a no-revoke deck, albeit this is something of a stretch. The aces are all the same and the images on the jacks, queens and kings are as shown below in the fourth photo and repeat in each "suit", although the names of each are different, corresponding to characters in that particular play, so the Queen of Othello is entitled Desdemona but the Queen of The Merchant of Venice is entitled Portia. Each pip card, 2-10, contains lines of dialogue from each respective play corresponding to the number of that particular card, therefore, a two would contain two lines of dialogue and a ten would contain ten lines of dialogue. The backs are the red Lotus design. There is no indication on either the original box or the instructions who designed or printed this game but it does not seem unreasonable to think that USPC may have been involved.
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