Aunt Sally based on a blackface doll itself inspired by a low-life character named "Black Sal", which appeared in an 1821 series of novellas entitled "Life of London" by Pierce Egan, a contemporary of Charles Dickens. The game dates back to the 17th century, although the name "Aunt Sally" may have been a later addition. It was traditionally played in central English pubs and fairgrounds. An Aunt Sally was originally the modelled head of an old woman with a clay pipe in her mouth; the object was for players to throw sticks at the head in order to break the pipe. The
The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God her "strengthened mental powers take her far beyond the stage at which there is fun in smashing idols". The Black Girl, as protagonist, serves the same purpose as Christian in John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress"; that is to say her own "inner", or "spiritual" life is represented as a series of physical events and encounters. The over-all tone of the argument is agnostic: through all the rejection of false gods there remains an implied conviction that there is a true god to find: at the end of the work the girl, now an old woman, resumes her search rather than