An Account of Peter Coddle's Visit to New York (1890)

" As early as the late 1800s, a form of "game" (but more accurately a general amusement, as it lacks a scoring methodology and a winner) was offered in the form of a long story containing blanks, and accompanied by dozens of pieces of card-stock paper each printed with one word, usually a noun. When the reader encountered a blank, a card was drawn and the word inserted. ("He sees a ____ and then later meets a ____ "... and so forth.)

One of the earliest mass-produced games of this type was "Peter Coddle's Trip to New York", in which a country bumpkin experiences the wonders of the Big City. This was first produced by the legendary McLoughlin Brothers (NY) and taken up by others, including their competitor Milton Bradley (MA), whose company outlasted them and later bought many of their more popular titles."