Billiards
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Billiards. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a word probably derived from old French billiard, "a stick with a curved end"; in English, introduced as the name of a game, and made plural. The origin of billiards is uncertain. It was bro brought into fashion by Louis XIV. ( mi (middle of 17th century), whose physicians recommended him exercise after eating. Others believe billiards to be of English origin. It is mentioned by Spenser ("Mother Hubbard's Tale," 1591 ), and by Shakespeare ("Antony and Cleopatra ," circa, 1607). The earliest description of billiards in English is in Cotton's "Compleat Gamester" (1674). The bed of the table was then made of oak; sometimes of marble. Slate beds were first used about 1827. The cushions were stuffed with flock; list was used later. India rubber cushions were first manufactured about 1835. The p pockets, called hazards, were at first wooden boxes, nets being employed soon afterward. Each player pushed his ball with a mast (now corrupted into mace), made of heavy wood, and tipped at the broad end with ivory. The game played the was the white winning game (single pool), five or three up. A player hold-coun ing his adversary's ball won an end (or life); if he holed his own ball he lost a life (hence the terms winning and losing hazards). In addition, a small arch of ivory, called a port, and an ivory peg or king, stood on the table, and certain scores appertained to passing the port Early in the 19th century, the white winning and losing carambole game, now known as billiards, ousted all other varieties in England. It is played on a table 12 feet by 6 feet, surrounded by cushions, and having six pockets, of no fixed size, one at each angle of the two adjacent squares which form the bed of the table: three balls, diameter 2 1-16th inches, are used. The French have long discarded pockets altogether, and play 3-Vol. and to touching the king.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
bil'yerdz, a table game played by two or more persons. It is an ancient game, thought to antedate the Christian era. The game was introduced into America by the Spaniards, it is thought, about 1570. The players drive ivory balls about the table by striking them with the end of a wooden staff termed a cue. The table is about six feet by twelve. It must stand perfectly level, and be made of massive material so that it will not shake. The top is frequently made of slate. A raised rim or cushion packed with leather or rubber runs around the entire edge. The top of the table and cushion are covered with heavy green felt. Green is required as less deceptive to the eyesight, especially at night. Pool, a variation of billiards, is played on tables that have six holes, one at each corner and one at the middle of each side, provided with pockets of netting. The rules of the game are too technical for description here. Points are made by driving a ball in such a way that it glances from one to another, or, in pool, drives another into a pocket. Some games combine striking balls and driving them into pockets. Others consist of the one or the other. A successful billiard player must have a true eye and a quick, firm hand. The nicety with which a skillful billiardist can calculate angles is something wonderful. When detached from unworthy surroundings, the game of billiards is a delightful trial of skill, in itself as unobjectionable as lawn croquet.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's guess in 1910 that billiards is "an ancient game, thought to antedate the Christian era" no longer holds: historians now place its origin in 15th-century Europe, as an indoor version of outdoor lawn games, which is why the earliest references cluster in the 1500s that Collier's cites from Spenser and Shakespeare. The ivory balls both entries take for granted are gone, replaced from the 1920s onward by cast phenolic resin — one Belgian maker, Aramith, now supplies most of the world's tournament balls. Collier's 12-by-6-foot English table survives as the standard for snooker, a game neither entry names, which became a global television sport after the BBC's colour series Pot Black began in 1969; in America the carom game faded and pocket billiards, or pool, took over on smaller nine-foot tables. Aiton's careful defence of the game "when detached from unworthy surroundings" marks how far respectability has travelled: the hall's disreputable reputation, sharpened by the 1961 film The Hustler, is now largely a period curiosity.
Written for this edition, 2026.