board game: The Coquette and Her Suitors

"The Coquette or, The History of Eliza Wharton" is an epistolary novel by Hannah Webster Foster, published anonymously in 1797. The novel was one of the best-selling works of its time and it was reprinted eight times between 1824 and 1828. Still, it was not credited to Foster until 16 years after her death in 1856. A story based on real-life events, it involves a single woman who chooses not to marry immediately and is eventually scorned and ruined for her choices. The book was still recognized in 1858, when a Boston publisher brought out a board game loosely based on it. Players in the game take the part of one of the title heroine's many suitors. One spins the dial but all advance along individual paths marked with the ups and downs of pursuing a lover. Several clever twists allow for advances or retreats, and the winner is the player who first reaches "Acceptation."