The court gamester or, Full and easy instructions for playing the games now in vogue

Published in 1719 by Edmund Curll, The Court Gamester emerged during a period of burgeoning interest in polite society leisure activities in early 18th-century England. Attributed to Richard Seymour, the text was designed as a practical manual for the aristocracy and the rising middle class, aiming to codify the rules and strategies for games that had become central to fashionable social gatherings, such as ombre, piquet, and whist.

The volume serves as a significant artifact of Georgian-era sociability, reflecting the era's fascination with structured gaming as both an intellectual exercise and a high-stakes social pursuit. As a printer, Curll was notorious for his opportunistic publishing tactics, often catering to the public's appetite for instructional literature that promised entry into elite circles, which helped ensure the book's wide distribution and sustained relevance among the gaming public of the time.