Eighth Book of Tan

The 7-piece puzzle or tangram comes from China where it enjoyed a vogue around 1800. It is in all probability the original "Chinese puzzle" -- the proverbial prototype of all that is perplexing and tricky. The challenge of the Tangram lies in your ability to arrange 7 geometrical pieces (a square, a rhomboid, and 5 triangles) into a variety of different shapes. In "The Eighth Book of Tan" author Sam Loyd, America's great puzzle expert, collected hundreds of Oriental tangram shapes he remembered from his childhood and added some original quirks and twists of his own. The approx. 700 puzzles are presented along with a running commentary that gives every appearance of being a precise, carefully documented account of the history of the tangram, its supposed origins in ancient China, its esoteric religious significance and symbolism, and its relation to the theorem of Pythagoras and other aspects of Euclid's geometry. These puzzles are genuine challenges!