Authors card game

This is my last odds-and-ends post for the day.

If all goes according to plan, I shall be starting posts on Northanger Abbey next week.

Well, there’s this little game that I’ve been playing quite a bit lately, mostly with my sister (and usually my niece joins in). I don’t remember how it came up, but some of my family started talking about this game – I guess I was too young to play when it was popular with them before – and when my dad mentioned Jane Austen was in it, of course I had to seek it out. There it was, not even buried or anything, in the game closet.

   The box is so worn-out you can see it has been used a lot!

   The game is actually rather easy – sort of like Go Fish, except more interesting, of course. And I know it nearly by heart now – give me a book in the game, and I could tell you who wrote it; name one of the authors, and I could tell you a few books by him.

   My sister and I are always trying to get certain authors – the “desirables” – Jane Austen, of course, is top priority. If you get her set, you win the game. (Well, not really, but that is a little joke between us.)

   I’m not sure why they think she looked like that – in particular the hair color – but oh well. At least she’s in there! In the newer games she’s left out – can you believe it?!

   If I would have been choosing the books, I’d replace Mansfield Park with Sense and Sensibility – I think it’s just as well-known, if not more so.

   For quite a while when I first started playing this, I hardly EVER got her – it was very odd. But I’m catching up. =)

Here are some more desirables –

And especially Louisa May Alcott, because she’s one of the only two women authors In the game.

Which is why I replaced one with…

   L. M. Montgomery. The name of the author originally there as well as all his books but one were hard to pronounce (because they were French), and we never hear of that author anyways. So I covered up “weird black-haired dude” or “Bald Zach” as we jokingly called him (the latter because of his last name – Balzac) with a ‘girl author.’ I made the card things myself on the computer, and used rubber cement to glue it on. It sticks well, but also peels off nicely without damaging the original cards.

   I might replace them with the Bronte Sisters or Elizabeth Gaskell later.

After playing the game so many times, we started to nic-name some things; change the titles slightly, etc. just for fun. Here are the ones that have to do with Jane Austen:

For this one, we copy Harriet from the 2009 Emma and say “ ‘Shipcourt’ of Miles Standish”. Tehe.

Instead of ‘Sir Walter Scott’ we often say ‘Sir Walter Elliot’; the father's name in Persuasion.

Sir Walter Scott lived while Jane Austen did – they were actually around the same age. He admired her works – I think she must have admired his as well, since she quoted him quite a bit.

Here’s a complete list of the authors in this edition of the game:

William Shakespeare

Jane Austen

Honore de Balzac (now L. M. Montgomery)

Robert Louis Stevenson

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Washington Irving

Louisa May Alcott

Sir Walter Scott

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Charles Dickens

James Fenimore Cooper

Mark Twain

Henry W. Longfellow