Edmond Hoyle

• Name — Edmond Hoyle • Known for — English card game authority, "the Father of Whist" • Birthplace — England • Place of death — London, Greater London, England • Burial Place — Marylebone Churchyard London

Little is known about Hoyle's early life prior to publication of his books. Much of what is written about him is untrue or exaggerated. The suggestion that he trained at the bar is not known to be true, but some things say otherwise. Hoyle died at the age of 97 on 29 August 1769 on Wellbank Street (today Welbeck Street), Cavendish Square, London.

By 1741, Hoyle began to tutor members of high society at the game of whist, selling his students a copy of his manuscript notes. Hoyle expanded the manuscript and published A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist in 1742, selling it for the high price of one guinea. When the book quickly sold out, rather than publish a new edition, Hoyle sold the rights to it to bookseller Francis Cogan for 100 guineas, an enormous sum for a small pamphlet. Before Cogan was able to publish a second edition, two printers pirated the work, giving the author as "A Gentleman" rather than Hoyle. The printers disguised their identities by publishing under false names, one as Webster, the other as Webb. Cogan published second and third editions and two months later, obtained an injunction against the pirates which he announced in a fourth edition (all 1743). To distinguish the genuine editions from the piracies, Cogan paid Hoyle two pence per copy to autograph the genuine works. The piracies were profitable to Hoyle, though a disaster for Cogan who was forced to lower the price of the book to match the pirates and to pay for Hoyle's signature.

The rules of whist published in A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist were regarded as authoritative until 1864, after which time they were superseded by the new rules written by John Loraine Baldwin and adopted by the Arlington and Portland clubs.

In 1748, Osborne stopped publishing the individual treatises and instead sold a collected edition under the title Mr. Hoyle's Treatises of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess and Back-Gammon. The whist treatise was described as the eighth edition. The fourteenth edition (1765) was the last published during Hoyle's lifetime. Fifteenth and sixteenth editions appeared after his death, with the autograph reproduced by woodblock print.

The books were frequently reprinted in Ireland, something that was permitted as the English copyright statute, the Statute of Anne, did not extend to Ireland. One edition was printed in Edinburgh. Hoyle's writing was translated into many continental languages; first Portuguese (1753), then German (1754), French (1761), Italian (1768), Russian (1769), and Dutch (1790). Various facsimile and revised editions have appeared over the decades and centuries, often titled Hoyle's Rules or Hoyle's Games in English.