David Parlett
games research & development

Wer spielt, hat schon gewonnen*

A new English-language
edition is to be published
by Gibsons Games in 2010

Keen on cards?

Join the International
Playing-Card Society

Board stiff?

Join the International
Board Game Studies Association

I specialise in indoor games - especially card games, board games and word games - as a freelance inventor, writer, historian and consultant. Sometimes I even get round to playing them.

My best-known board game is Hare & Tortoise. Still going strong, it has sold several million copies since first published in 1974.

My books include the Penguin Book of Card Games, Teach Yourself Card Games, the Oxford History of Card Games, and the Oxford History of Board Games.

As a member of the International Playing-Card Society and the Board Game Studies Association I give talks and run workshops on the history, theory and appreciation of games, am a consultant on games terminology to the Oxford English Dictionary and card game contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and advise on the staging of games in period films and TV productions. I'm also a member of the Society of Authors and of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

This site details all my published books, games and film/TV credits and includes some games to play on-line. It also incorporates pages devoted to other of my interests. All can be reached from the site map (click globe, left).