Published by Taubert’s Bookstore. Leipzig. 1828. 16.5 x 10.5 cm.

First edition of the book. 323 pages with 36 pasted-in and colored playing card prints (Saxon playing cards “Neue Schwerdter Karte,” playing card maker: Ferdinand Ludwig Herbert, Leipzig). In half-leather binding. Complete. Very good condition; only the red color from the cards has slightly bled onto the facing pages.

Carl Herloßsohn, whose full name was Borromäus Sebastian Georg Karl Reginald Herloß, was born on September 1, 1804, in the Kleinseite district of Prague and died on December 10, 1849, in Leipzig. He was a German writer, journalist, and encyclopedist. Herlosohn, known as a critic and free thinker, achieved unexpected success with this work. In the Kingdom of Saxony, he had no trouble selling it, but in Prussia, the satire on the social and political conditions of the time fell under censorship and the work was banned.

Bibliography: See *Divination Games, Lottery and Oracle Books from Five Centuries*. Lit.: BubeDameKönig “Das Blatt” No. 49, pp. 1–37.