25 June 2022 Sue Young

Sam Loyd books of puzzles

In this digital day and age there’s still no feeling quite like holding a book in your hand.  And when the content is historical too it somehow just feels more right.

The Sam Loyd Company was founded by Sam Loyd in 1892 to produce his many inventions. When he passed away in 1911, it was inherited by his son, Sam Loyd Junior, who continued to run it until his own death in 1934. Today, that same company still exists and promotes the work of Sam Loyd by printing faithfully reproductions of his books and puzzles.
And a lot of the puzzles he published in his books back then were very difficult indeed and still challenging readers today.

Sam Loyd was a character larger than life and started the puzzle craze of the 1880 with his 15 Puzzle. This was big! The Rubik’s Cube craze of the 1980’s had nothing on this one.  But even though he’s been known as America’s greatest puzzle designer, Sam Loyd, fooled everyone for 115 years!  Did he even invent the puzzle at all? 
That’s what lead authors  Jerry Slocum and Dic Sonneveld to spend the time researching and writing this book. The 15 Puzzle.  A cracker of a story and a really interesting historical read with many nice observations about family and social life of the day.

 

 

 

Tags fifteen puzzle, word puzzle, sam loyd