Playing Cards in Literature #1: The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray

Harper's Monthly Magazine, July 1858 (enlarge)

It's been said that The Virginians by Thackeray was the worst novel ever written by a great novelist. Some critics even went so far as to call it the worst novel ever written despite every page being thoroughly interesting, as it was incongruous and forever losing its narrative. I haven't read it but own an 1858 Harper's Monthly serialization of it which has some great illustrations including a witch and, of course, a disembodied hand holding aloft three playing cards as shown above. Since I probably think about the latter more than my own child or the woman that I love, I present it here to stop me from literally gnawing it out of the book.

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The witch illustration was just a mere collateral visage found along the way to more card playing illustrations, but am I wrong to think that the third illustration shown resembles The Fool of Tarot lore?

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The other two drawings are self-explanatory. The 19th century aristocracy was just as frivolous as our modern dullard is, all children excluded from such scorn.

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