Pictured Puzzles and Word Play by A. Cyril Pearson

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Pictured Puzzles and Word Play by A. Cyril Pearson

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By Isabella Wilson Posted on Dec 26, 2025

In Category - Pets & Care

Authors: Pearson, A. Cyril (Arthur Cyril), 1838-1916 Published By : Pearson, A. Cyril (Arthur Cyril), 1838-1916

Book Language: English

Hey, I just found this wild book from 1912 called 'Pictured Puzzles and Word Play' that's basically a time capsule of brain teasers. It's not a novel—it's a collection of Victorian-era puzzles, riddles, and visual games. The main 'mystery' is whether your modern brain can solve what entertained people over a century ago. Some of the logic is delightfully old-fashioned, and the language puzzles will have you Googling archaic terms. It's a fun, quirky peek into how people used to challenge their minds before smartphones existed. Perfect for a cozy, off-screen afternoon.

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More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text. PICTURED PUZZLES AND WORD PLAY _=BY THE SAME AUTHOR=_ UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME THE TWENTIETH CENTURY STANDARD PUZZLE BOOK Crown 8vo. Cloth Extra. Gilt. [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE Can you discover by anagram what the ape is saying to the elephant, from this descriptive sentence? A sly tree-ape, he tries a rum telephone. _Exactly the same letters must be used._] PICTURED PUZZLES AND WORD PLAY A COMPANION TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY STANDARD PUZZLE BOOK EDITED BY A. CYRIL PEARSON, M.A. AUTHOR OF “100 CHESS PROBLEMS,” “ANAGRAMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN,” ETC. _PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration] LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. CONTENTS. FRONTISPIECE PUZZLE PAGE PICTURED PUZZLES AND WORD PLAY 1 ENIGMAS, CHARADES, PUZZLES, &C., &C. 130 ODDS AND ENDS 188 SOLUTIONS TO PICTURED PUZZLES 202 „ „ WORD PLAY 283 „ „ ODDS AND ENDS 375 PICTURED PUZZLES No. I.--A GOOD SPECIMEN Here is a nest of magic squares, seven of them within the four corners of one diagram:-- ╔═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╤═══╗ ║149│ 16│ 33│196│ 47│197│ 44│208│ 42│203│ 57│194│ 38│ 54│217║ ╟───╆━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╅───╢ ║177┃ 62│183│ 52│213│ 59│160│ 15│161│ 85│156│190│105│ 28┃ 49║ ╟───╂───╆━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╅───╂───╢ ║ 56┃147┃201│146│ 75│155│ 2│220│ 3│153│ 53│ 26│209┃ 79┃170║ ╟───╂───╂───╆━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╅───╂───╂───╢ ║162┃ 76┃148┃180│ 83│187│ 41│104│ 22│195│145│ 60┃ 78┃150┃ 64║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╆━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╅───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║ 74┃176┃ 4┃124┃119│ 37│154│ 48│186│138│109┃102┃222┃ 50┃152║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╂───╆━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╅───╂───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║221┃ 24┃175┃ 63┃ 86┃116│ 93│135│ 94│127┃140┃163┃ 51┃202┃ 5║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╆━━━┿━━━┿━━━╅───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║ 10┃215┃ 69┃159┃134┃ 95┃ 98│126│115┃131┃ 92┃ 67┃157┃ 11┃216║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───┼───┼───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║219┃ 19┃165┃ 1┃136┃ 97┃130│113│ 96┃129┃ 90┃225┃ 61┃207┃ 7║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───┼───┼───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║ 8┃205┃ 84┃191┃ 87┃158┃111│100│128┃ 68┃139┃ 35┃142┃ 21┃218║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╄━━━┿━━━┿━━━╃───╂───╂───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║214┃ 34┃144┃ 27┃112┃ 99│133│ 91│132│110┃114┃199┃ 82┃192┃ 12║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╂───╄━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╃───╂───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║ 14┃123┃ 55┃106┃117│189│ 72│178│ 40│ 88│107┃120┃171┃103┃212║ ╟───╂───╂───╂───╄━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╃───╂───╂───╂───╢ ║206┃ 89┃181┃166│143│ 39│185│122│204│ 31│ 81│ 46┃ 45┃137┃ 20║ ╟───╂───╂───╄━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╃───╂───╂───╢ ║ 58┃101┃ 17│ 80│151│ 71│224│ 6│223│ 73│173│200│ 25┃125┃168║ ╟───╂───╄━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╃───╂───╢ ║118┃198│ 43│174│ 13│167│ 66│211│ 65│141│ 70│ 36│121│164┃108║ ╟───╄━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━┿━━━╃───╢ ║ 9│210│193│ 30│179│ 29│182│ 18│184│ 23│169│ 32│188│172│ 77║ ╚═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╝ As each border is removed a fresh magic square remains, in which the numbers in the cells of each row, column, and diagonal add up to the same sum, while each of these sums is a multiple of the central 113. No. II.--A BORDERED DIAMOND By G. Slater ┌ │ ┌───┘ │ 91 ┌───┘ ┌ │ 3 │ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │ 27 │ 25 ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌ │156 │154 │ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │161 │ 15 │138 ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌ │130 │153 │136 │ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │162 │147 │120 │ 69 ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │ 39 │ 22 │ 55 │112 ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │ 4 │152 │ 76 │ 57 56 ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │168 │146 │139 │100 99 ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │ 6 │ 21 │ 29 │ 45 44 43 ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ ┌───┘ │157 │ 80 │ 30 │ 88 87 86 └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ │ 53 │ 41 │134 │123 122 121 └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ │ 10 │132 │ 89 │ 74 73 └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ │105 │ 67 │ 35 │109 108 └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ │ 5 │116 │137 │ 60 └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ │144 │ 19 │107 │ 95 └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ │ 11 │106 │ 68 │ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └ │118 │ 77 │ 37 └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ │ 92 │ 38 │ └───┐ └───┐ └ │163 │148 └───┐ └───┐ │ 12 │ └───┐ └ │ 66 └───┐ │ └ ───┐ 1│ └───┐ 117│ ───┐ └───┐ 20│ 160│ └───┐ └───┐ 129│ 65│ ───┐ └───┐ └───┐ 42│ 38│ 165│ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ 36│ 103│ 26│ ───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ 124│ 81│ 54│ 159│ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐ 75│ 135│ 151│ 52│ └───┐ └───┐ └───┐...

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Continue Reading Full Book

Published in 1912, 'Pictured Puzzles and Word Play' is a charming collection of intellectual diversions from a bygone era. Edited by A. Cyril Pearson, it gathers visual conundrums, riddles, charades, and word games that were the popular entertainment of the day. There's no continuous plot, but each page presents a new challenge, often relying on puns, lateral thinking, and illustrations that follow the artistic style of the period.

Why You Should Read It

This book is a genuine curiosity. It's less about solving every puzzle perfectly and more about enjoying the journey. You get a direct line into the humor and mental gymnastics of the early 20th century. Some puzzles feel timeless, while others are hilariously dated, requiring knowledge of historical figures or phrases no longer in common use. It’s a gentle, low-stakes way to give your brain a different kind of workout.

Final Verdict

This is a niche but delightful find. It's perfect for puzzle enthusiasts who want to see the roots of their hobby, history lovers curious about daily pastimes, or anyone who enjoys a tangible connection to the past. It's not a gripping page-turner, but as a occasional dip-into book, it offers a unique and thoughtful kind of fun. Keep it on your shelf for a rainy day when you want to unplug and be quietly baffled by your great-grandparents' idea of a good time.

📢 License Information

This digital edition is based on a public domain text. You do not need permission to reproduce this work.