The Game of Little Jack Horner 1888

The game of Little Jack Horner consists of 32 cards. Four ‘Jack Horner and His Big Pie’ cards with numbers 2, 4, 5, and 7 displayed in the top left corner. The other 28 cards are 7 each, of 4 different variety of plums; the Lombard, the Crugers Scarlet, the Dominee Dull, and the Green Cage Plum. These cards display the numbers 1 to 7 in their top left corner.

To begin, the four Jack Horner pie cards are placed in a square. All other cards are dealt to the players and placed faced down in a pile. Taking turns, players flip over their top card, and attempt to add plum cards to the pies. Once the number 1 plum card is placed on a pie, all other plum cards in ascending order must be of the same plum.

If a player turns over a card from his pile and he can’t place it in the center pie cards, then he sets it in front of him face up, creating a discard pile. He can only place a plum card if it can go in order of 1 to 7, and on the correct pie. Once a pie is complete, the player who completes it, takes it.

A player may be able to play his top faced up card on his discard pile during his next turn. He may also draw another card from his pile and play that too, if able. After the draw cards are all used, players shuffle the discard piles and begin again until all cards have been used to create pies.

Score is as follows:

three points is awarded to the first player who goes out of cards two points for each pie taken

The winner is the player with the most points, or the most points after three rounds.