The Riddle Drawer

Riddles that once ruled the parlor.

A 1901 book of parlor riddles and puzzles — some still land, some are gloriously baffling, a few stranger than either. The pick here, each linking to its page.

The Victorians turned "Florence Nightingale" into "Flit on cheering angel." The book's anagram game rearranges the letters of famous names into eerily fitting phrases: Florence Nightingale becomes *"Flit on cheering angel,"* and astronomer becomes *"moon starer."* Both are perfect anagrams — every letter accounted for.Read it: Answers to Anagram Story
"W. E. Gladstone" = "We lads get on." The Prime Minister's name, reshuffled. The same page gives Napoleon → "Pale noon," Telegraphs → "Great helps," Old England → "Golden land," and Oratorio → "I roar too."Read it: Answers to Anagram Story
You can write the date of a death inside a sentence. A chronogram hides a year in the Roman-numeral letters of a phrase. For Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603 (MDCIII), the book gives: *"My Day is Closed In Immortality"* — pull out the M, D, C, I, I, I and they sum to
— answers-to-anagram-story — A+
Raphael's death year is buried in a boast about him. Raphael died in 1520 (MDXX); the chronogram reads *"My Deeds eXceed expectation."* And for the Norman Conquest of 1066 (MLXVI): *"Mighty Leader eXpect Victory Invading England."*Read it: Answers to Anagram Story
A whole short story written entirely in anagrams. One page is a rambling travelogue in which every underlined phrase is a scrambled word: you walk past *"the moon starer"* (astronomer), dodge *"two sly ware"* (lawyers), and end up *"Tim in a pet"* (impatient). It reads as nonsense until you unscramble it.Read it: A Story in Anagrams
The sum of human happiness is spelled, not counted. A trick sum: *"Take fifty, add cipher, add five, add the fifth of eight, and the total is the sum of human happiness."* Fifty = L, cipher = O, five = V, the fifth letter of "eight" = E. The answer is LOVE.Read it: A Poultry Problem
The riddle whose answer is Jonah. *"There was a man of Adam's race, / Who had a curious dwelling place; / He had a house all covered o'er, / Where no man dwelt since ne'er before…"* The house was not made of brick nor stone, and stood neither in heaven, earth, nor hell. Answer: Jonah in the whale's belly.Read it: An Old Riddle
"Who are all the shavers in the world?" A verse that answers itself: *"The barber shaves with polished blade; / The merchant shaves in constant trade… / The lawyer shaves both friends and foes… / The office-holder shaves the nation… / The people all shave one another."*Read it: An Old Riddle
The fox, the goose, and the corn. The classic river-crossing puzzle appears here in 1896: a man with a fox, a goose, and some corn, a boat that holds only one, and the rule that the fox eats the goose and the goose eats the corn if left alone. The book gives the full solution (take the goose first, then double back).Read it: A Poultry Problem
The Obedient Egg. Blow out a raw egg, quarter-fill the dry shell with fine sand, wax the hole shut, and at breakfast you can make the egg balance on a knife-edge or a glass rim — tap it gently and the sand settles to hold it there. Its evil twin, the Disobedient Egg, is weighted with lead shot in sealing wax so it always rolls off.Read it: Bewitched Eggs
The squirrel that never empties the stump. *"Six ears of corn are in a hollow stump; how long will it take a squirrel to carry them all out if he takes out three ears a day?"* The catch is the word *ears* — he carries his own two ears plus one ear of corn each trip, so it takes six days.Read it: Bewitched Eggs
A supper where you order from clues, not dishes. At a "Conundrum Supper" the printed menu lists riddles instead of food: you ask the waiter for *"What Occasioned the Fall of Mankind"* and receive roasted apples; *"New England Brains"* is baked beans; *"Boston's Overthrow"* is tea. Guests order six items blind and eat whatever they've conjured.Read it: A Conundrum Supper
A salad hidden inside a bouquet. At a Floral entertainment, the butler passes baskets of real flower nosegays; deep in each is a folded head of lettuce tied with green ribbon, over a wafer-thin gelatine cup of tomato jelly or minced lobster. You untie the ribbons, the leaves spring open, the gelatine melts, and you keep the bouquet as a souvenir.Read it: Floral Salad
The Fagot Party. Guests are each handed an inch-long stick — a fagot — and must entertain the whole company for exactly as long as their stick keeps burning in the fire. When the flame dies, they're off the hook.Read it: A Fagot Party
Everything you can "find" on an 1894 penny. At a Penny Party each guest hunts a numbered list on a one-cent coin: *"Top of hill"* (brow), *"Place of worship"* (temple), *"An animal"* (hare/hair), *"Flowers"* (tulips / two lips), *"A jolly dog"* — the answer to that last one is *"a merry cur," i.e. America.*Read it: A Penny Entertainment
The Silhouette Entertainment. Couples trace each other's shadow-profiles onto black-backed paper by candlelight, cut them out, paste them up on a screen, and the whole party votes on the best and worst likeness — the parlor ancestor of the photo booth.Read it: A Penny Entertainment
The first banking transaction in the Bible — as a groaner. *"Where is the first banking transaction mentioned in the Bible? When the Egyptians received a check on the bank of the Red Sea, and Moses crossed it."*Read it: General Conundrums: Bible
Noah, financier. *"Who was the most successful financier mentioned in the Bible? Noah, because he floated a limited company when all the rest of the world was in liquidation."*Read it: General Conundrums: Bible
The best part of a doughnut is the hole. *"Which part of a New England doughnut have the Health Journals and noted physicians agreed as being the best and most wholesome? The hole — and the larger the hole the better the doughnut."*Read it: For Extra Conundrums
A pond you fish with puns. In the Fish Pond game the fish are riddles: *"The declaration that I drag a cask"* is a halibut ("haul I but"); *"what a lady prizes highly after she is betrothed"* is a herring ("her ring"); *"assistance"* is a sucker ("succor").Read it: Fish Pond
The Famous Numbers game. Draw a number from a dish and instantly name that many famous things: nine → the Muses; five → the senses; twelve → the Cæsars or the months; one → Shakespeare, "the one most famous."Read it: Famous Numbers
A Mother Goose party where you match torn nursery rhymes. Each hand-painted card carries one line of a rhyme and a picture; the gentlemen hold the opening lines, the ladies the closing ones, and you find your dinner partner by completing the couplet — *"Tommy Snooks and Bessie Brooks went walking on a Sunday"* meets *"…to-morrow will be Monday."*Read it: An Old Mother Goose Progressive Euchre Party
The 1896 pangram. Long before "the quick brown fox," the book offers a sentence using every letter of the alphabet: *"John quickly extemporized five tow bags,"* and another, *"James P. Brady gave me a black walnut box of quite small size."*Read it: Bewitched Eggs
A dinner-forfeit for the ladies: recite a poem backward. The parlor penalty games ask a gentleman to mime shaving himself and thread an imaginary needle; a lady must *"recite a line from any well known poem backward"* or act out fear, joy, and sorrow on command. — for-ladies / for-gentlemen — B
The fortune-telling doll that runs on a spinning disc. A homemade fair attraction: a doll on a stand holds a fixed pointer over a cardboard wheel; you pay, spin the wheel, and read your fate wherever the pointer lands — a mechanical oracle any "clever girl can make."Read it: Fortune-Telling Doll
Five real words from the same four letters. A rhyme with five blanks, all filled by anagrams of *v-i-l-e*: vile, evil, veil, Levi, live.Read it: A Poultry Problem