Authors (card game) Authors (card game) Authors or, The Game of Authors is a card game for three to five players. The first "Game of Authors" was published by G. M. Whipple & A. A. Smith of Salem, Massachusetts in 1861. In 1897 it was also published by Parker Brothers, which also was in Salem, Massachusetts at the time. The deck of cards consists of eleven sets of four cards each representing the works of eleven famous authors. The object of the game is to form complete sets of the four cards comprising the works of a particular author. The winner is the
Happy Families ladders, and first published before the Great Exhibition of 1851. Cards following Jaques's original designs, with grotesque illustrations possibly by Sir John Tenniel (there was no official credit), are still being made. The "Happy Families" children's storybooks, written by Allan Ahlberg, are titled in a similar way to the names of characters in this game. The names of the family members are structured as follows, where X stands for a surname and Y for an occupation. Family names, which vary from edition to edition, include: The eleven families indicated by Bold italics are from Jaques's original edition. In 1989 and