Literature Network » Horace Walpole

Content courtesy of

From: The Romanic Review
Date: 19941101
Author:Howard, Carol

"Lord Stavordale, not yet one-and-twenty, lost eleven thousand last [T]uesday, but recovered it by one great hand at hazard: he swore a great oath - 'Now, if I had been playing deep, I might have won millions.'"(1) Eighteenth-century society's passion for gambling, exhibited in this quip by Horace Walpole, is common knowledge among cultural and social historians, if not among casual students of the Enlightenment. Polite circles played for simperingly small or unfathomably large wagers an endless variety of card games; indeed, some of the newly-invented ones, Thomas M. Kavanagh tells ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Other Articles on Horace Walpole

About Our Articles: We've partnered with Highbeam Research to provide these article excerpts for your research needs. However, due to copyright laws, we cannot publish the whole article. To view these articles in full length you'll need to use the link above to access the free trial at Highbeam.