Pope Joan (card game)
1796 caricature by James Gilray showing Lady Georgiana Gordon holding the Pope (the ♦9) in a game of Pope Joan | |
| Origin | England |
|---|---|
| Type | Matching |
| Family | Stops group |
| Players | 3-8 |
| Skills | Attention |
| Cards | 51 cards |
| Deck | French |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Playing time | 20 min. |
| Chance | Easy |
| Related games | |
| Michigan • Nain Jaune • Newmarket • Poch • Queen Nazarene | |
Pope Joan or Pope, a once popular Victorian family game, is an 18th-century English round game of cards for three to eight players derived from the French game of Matrimony and Comete and ancestor to Spinado and the less elaborate Newmarket. The game is related to the German Poch and French Nain Jaune.
Although its first published rules appeared in Hoyle's Games edition of 1814, an earlier reference to the game, originally called Pope Julius, appeared in The Oxford English Dictionary in 1732.