- Name Book: Foster’s complete Hoyle; an encyclopedia of games, including all the indoor games played at the present day. (Revised and Enlarged)
- Author: Robert Frederick Foster
- Year: 1914
- Publisher: Frederick A Stokes Company
- Location: New York, USA
Foster’s Complete Hoyle; An encyclopedia of games, including all the indoor games played at the present day (Revised and Enlarged) by R.F. Foster 1914
R.F Foster’s third edition of “Foster’s complete Hoyle; an encyclopedia of games, including all the indoor games played at the present day” was published in 1914, the year of Canfield’s death.
This book could have provided the answer to the question of what Solitaire was played at Canfield’s casino, but it did not.
According to “You Can’t Win”, an article written by Frank Emery in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, (20 August 1934)
Richard A. Canfield, In a letter to R.F. Foster, claimed that the game he was playing in his casinos, which was originally named “Seven Card Klondike,” had been passed down to him by an Alaskan sourdough. He also mentioned a brief trial run of the game at his gambling house on W. 26th St. in New York City.
In the previous edition of Foster’s complete Hoyle; an encyclopedia of games, including all the indoor games played at the present day (1909) R.F Foster pointed out clearly that “Klondike”, when played for real money, was called “Canfield”. This description fits in seamlessly with Frank Emery’s lecture.
But then, in the 1914 edition, R.F. Foster provides a radically different theory. A theory that appears to contradict the entire Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper story
About Klondike
“This game is sometimes mistakenly called “Canfield”, but that is a distinct game, described elsewhere, in which there are separate piles for stock and foundations.”
About Canfield
“The betting is against the player getting eleven cards in his foundation piles. If the pack is purchased for $52, he gets $5 for every card in his foundations. It is almost impossible to get out the whole fifty-two for $260, but it is done occasionally.”