Alice in Wonderland
House of Cards®

US Games Systems, Inc.

This charming over-sized deck from USGS is, at its heart, a children's matching game, where the aim is to collect sets of related cards in a manner not unlike Go Fish. But the deck by no means ends there. Each card also contains a delightful illustration, based, as the frontispiece card says, upon the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. And just for fun, USGS licensed the "House of Cards®" design from the Eames Office, making this deck an interlocking house-building deck of cards as well. What's more, there is also an accompanying book (which, alas, I don't yet have) which purports to offer yet more games and diversions with the cards.

The paper insert is mostly the rules for playing the Entertaining Game of Alice in Wonderland, but it includes some small bits of historical and design information. The deck consists of "Fifty four pictorial cards, depicting the Most famous characters and scenes in the above work, Adapted, drawn in facsimile, and Elaborately rendered in colors, from Sir John Tenniel's original designs, by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson (48 cards) and Brian Partridge (6 cards)."

And from the rules themselves, we are told, "The pack consists of fifty-four cards, viz., eighteen sets of three cards each, all three bearing the same number. One card in each set is a Leading card, and shows on its face the titles of the other two cards; thus the Leading card, "Alice in the Pool of Tears," tells you to find the card with "Mouse" and the card with "Crab," which complete the set. These three cards are numbered (2)."

Be warned that these cards were scanned in life-size, so the pictures are larger than the other decks. All images Copyright 1996, U.S. Games Systems, Inc.

Published by USGS in 1996, this is a very new deck of cards, and as a result seems to be in card and game stores everywhere. I can't imagine anyone having trouble locating it, if they so desired. As I said in the blurb on the main page, I actually prefer my house-cards to be free of those notches, having found that cards can hold up better that way. But they're no doubt fun for the right sort of people, and the illustrations are still wonderful.

Alice in Wonderland is available in electronic versions, many of which are collected in Yahoo's Alice in Wonderland page. Lewis Carroll resources can be found there, too. And at least one page exists on Sir John Tenniel, from which you can easily find pointers to more information.