The series of nine sets of playing cards provide the collector with the ability to own facsimiles of some of the most important playing cards published in the 17th and 18th centuries. Each pack has been faithfully reproduced on thick card and contains an introduction; both are contained in a card packet similar to those found in modern playing cards.
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In 1644 King Louis XIV of France issued a licence to print certain educational cards. The resulting cards sparked off a great fashion, which spread to Holland, Germany and England, and the most popular and, presumably, "necessary" subject soon emerged as Heraldry or a knowledge of the arms and blazons of not only royalty but also aristocracies. Brianville's "Arms of the Sovereigns of Europe" (Lyons, 1659) was re-issued in tens of editions and was copied in five countries outside of France over a period of more than eighty years.
The English edition of Brianville may well have inspired the makers of the present pack to produce a domestic, rather than an international, set of cards illustrating the arms of the peers of the United Kingdom. Although the cards are very rare, they must have achieved popularity as they are known in three different editions. The edition reproduced here was the third and published in 1688. Quite logically, the arrangement of the arms of the peers is made according to rank in each suit, the higher the rank, the higher the card value: archbishops and dukes are clearly superior to earls and barons, the arms of the latter being depicted on the lowest cards in all suits. It is obvious from the differences which can be observed in the different editions that every effort was made to keep up to date with deaths, successions and creations of titles, which is it measure of the importance attached at that time to having an exact knowledge of contemporary blazons.
The pack of cards reproduced here is from the Print Collection in Guildhall Library, London. The Introductory Note was prepared by Miss Sylvia Mann.

The Beggar's Opera with lyrics and dialogue by the poet John Gay (1685-1732) was first performed on 29 January 1728. The music was taken from many popular tunes of' the day, mostly English and Scottish, even some French, and chosen and arranged by John Christopher Pepusch, a German who had settled in England and who was a composer as well as an adapter of' stage musical works. Gay had told Pope that he thought "A Newgate Pastoral might make an odd pretty sort of thing", the inhabitants of that gaol inspiring him to produce verses to be spoken by characters from the lower orders of Londoners, at the same time satirising the society of the day and including a caricature of Sir Robert Walpole who could hardly have been amused. The opera was also intended as a parody of current Italian works. "The Beggar's Opera" is so called because it opens with a dialogue between a ragged beggar, who claims to be the author, and one of the actors. The beggar does not return until the final scene, but meantime the stage is taken over by the more familiar, even notorious characters, whose names are still household words.
Produced by a man called Rich, the opera was an immediate success and ran for sixty-three nights (a record at that time although a revival in 1920 was played nightly for two and a half years); it was said to have made "Rich gay and Gay rich" and temporarily eclipsed interest in Italian opera. A measure of' this success must be reflected in the production of this pack of cards which give the tunes and lyrics of' the opera.
It was first published in 1728, the year of the first production of the opera, by John Bowles, a member of' the famous London family of mapmakers and printsellers.
The publishers are indebted to the Master and Wardens of the Worshipful Company of' Makers of' Playing Cards permission to reproduce this pack of cards from the Phillips Collection at Guildhall Library and to Miss Sylvia Mann who prepared the Introductory Note.