The 1849 book The Grand and Practical Game of Billiards, written by H. Turner and estimated to sell for around $150, was bid to $6270 at the early May auction held by provincial auction house Keys, with another lot of billiards booklets and ephemera selling for $5645 against an estimate of $80. A collection of five bound volumes of billiards periodicals dating from 1895 to 1901 sold for $3762 against an estimate of $165 and two volumes of The Noble Game of Billiards 1830 and 1833, estimated to sell for around $165, were hammered at $3555.
Billiards is thought to have originally been played outside on the lawn, with the creation of the first billiards table being credited to Louis XI of France in 1469; in order for him to play without aggravating his bad back, he ordered a waist-high table. Two hundred years later, it was another Frenchman – this time Louis XIV – who popularised the game among the nobility, although it looked somewhat different to today’s game; the ball was pushed around with a mallet rather than being hit, and there was a range of other obstacles on the table. The billiard cue developed when players starting using the handle of mallet instead of the head. The pockets into which the ball is sunk today were gradually introduced in the 1700s, but they were initially intended as hazards and were to be avoided. By the mid-19th century the game of billiards was established across the world and in 1878 the first official World Billiards Championship was held in the UK.
