Introduction

To puzzle and be puzzled are enjoyable experiences, so it is no surprise that puzzling problems are as old as history itself, and follow a similar pattern of many centuries of slow progress, followed by rapid expansion in the nineteenth century, and an explosion in the twentieth. This book follows that pattern. The first third is devoted to puzzles from the dawn of history, in Egypt and Babylon, up to the nineteenth century. These are followed by examples of the puzzles of Loyd and Dudeney, who straddle the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and other famous puzzlers of that era such as Lewis Carroll and Eduard Lucas. The second half of the book is devoted to the great variety of puzzles composed in the twentieth century.

I must emphasize, however, that this is not a history. I have merely selected some representative figures. One day a history of puzzles will be written, I hope by David Singmaster, who has spent many years delving into the origins of popular puzzles, but in the meantime this book will give readers examples, only, of the puzzling questions that have found popular favour over the centuries.

Limitations of space have forced a strict selection. Word puzzles are entirely excluded. I hope that in due course they will form a separate volume, well justified by their immense richness and variety. A boundary also had to be drawn between puzzles of a logical and mathematical nature, and mathematical recreations and mathematics itself. This boundary cannot be drawn precisely, but generally speaking problems which require any mathematics beyond the most elementary algebra and geometry, have been excluded, and few of the puzzles require even that level of sophistication.

A number of puzzles are included which relate to mathematical recreations or which led to the development of specific recreations, but the recreations themselves are not treated. Readers interested in mathematical recreations will find references to many of the best known and most readily available sources in the bibliography.

Finally, manipulative puzzles requiring some kind of apparatus also deserve a book-length treatment of their own, and are excluded here. All the puzzles in this book can be tackled either mentally, or with the assistance of at most pencil and paper and perhaps a few counters.

Compiling this book has taken me back to the days when I was Puzzle Editor of Games & Puzzles magazine, and work was a pleasure hard to distinguish from play. I hope that readers will find some of that pleasure in the immense variety of puzzles assembled here.

I shall be happy to receive readers' opinions and suggestions, though I cannot guarantee to respond to every letter personally. I wish you happy and successful puzzling!

D.W. 1992

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