Card parties were an essential part of the Regency era social scene. While they occurred throughout the year, the demands for entertainment during the Yuletide season made them especially popular then.

The unique nature of card parties

Card parties were a unique sort of social event that could be anything from a small informal, intimate gathering of friends and family to a large, formal gathering intended to repay a number of social obliagations at once (and at a far lower cost than a dinner party of ball!)

In the case of a more formal event, a hostess might issue printed invitaions for the event. Card parties were generally held late in the evening, after dinner. The number of guests would be limited by the number of card tables that could be set up in space one had available, usually in a drawing room.

Ideally, card tables were furnished with new decks of cards (government sealed, new deck to be specific), at least two packs. Since playing cards of the era were usually plain white on the back, dirt and other marks showed easily. Clever players could then read those marks leveraging the information to their benefit-some of the original ‘marked cards’. If one could not afford new decks, the cleanest desks available would be offered for the party.

In a party where many people wished to play together ‘round games’ like Loo that could accommodate any number of players were favored. More serious players might prefer a highly structured game of whist. Hostesses could offer both sorts of games if she knew the preferences of her guest.

During the evening, proper hosts and hostesses would circulate among their guests, rarely playing themselves. Not only did they seek to make their guests feel welcome, but they could be on the alert for excessive or damaging wagers being made and gently step in to protect their guests, unless of course high stakes games were the intention of the evening.

Favorite Regency Card Games

Instructions to play favorite Regency card games can be found below.

• Casino
• Commerce
• Loo
• Piquet
• Quadrille
• Whist
• Vingt-et-un

Refreshments and Hot Suppers

What is a party without food? Even though elaborate dinners were not expected for a card party, guests would still expect to be fed during the evening.

Refreshments of tea, coffee, wine, ices, cake and other bites might be handed around the players during the evening. Where servants were not available to wait on the players, a cold sideboard with bread, meat, cheese and fruit might be provided for the player’s comfort.

A hot supper (a lighter meal than a dinner) might be provided at the end of the evening. Eliza Rundell, in The New System of Domestic Cookery provides a discussion on what a hot supper might have looked like.

In particular she notes: “An elegant supper may be served at a small expense by those who know how to make trifles that are in the house form the greatest part of the meal” suggesting that a card part was an economical form of entertaining and repaying the social obligations one might acquiring during the holiday season.

I confess, this makes my author-brain go into overdrive, imaging who in the neighborhood might be keeping track of what sort of people repayed dinner parties and balls with card parties and what sort of talk that might ensue as a result. Hmmm….

Tell me what you think in the comments!

References

Boyle, Laura. Attending a Regency Card Party. Jane Austen Center. Accessed Jan 1, 2022. https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/arts-and-entertainments/the-regency-card-party

Ives, Susanna. On Morning Calls and Hosting Dinner Parties, Balls and Routs in the Late Rgency. Susanna’s Floating World Blog.  June 6, 2012. Accessed December 8 2020. https://susannaives.com/wordpress/2012/06/on-morning-calls-and-hosting-dinner-parties-balls-and-routs-in-the-late-regency/

Parkes, Mrs. William. Domestic Duties; Or, Instructions To Young Married Ladies On The Management Of Their Households, And The Regulation Of Their Conduct In The Various Relations And Duties Of Married. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green Paternoster Row: London. 1828

Riley, Vanessa. Deal Me In~Take a Seat at a Regency Card Table. Fanessa Riley’s Regency Reflections. Dec 30, 2021. Accessed Jan 3, 2022. https://vanessariley.com/blog/2021/12/30/deal-me-in-taking-a-seat-at-a-regency-card-table/

Rundell, M. (1814). A New System of Domestic Cookery. New York: R. McDermut & D. B. Arden.