Crafting the Catalog of Modern Miracles: Writing a Rulebook That Behaves Like an 1881 Pamphlet
Over the past several months, I’ve been working on a project that sits somewhere between historical recreation, satire, and tabletop game design. The result is a small booklet titled Catalog of Modern Miracles, a parlor-style game built from authentic advertisements that originally appeared in the Warren Sentinel in 1881.
The advertisements themselves were located through the Virginia Chronicle, the digitized historic newspaper archive hosted by the Library of Virginia. The Chronicle provides access to thousands of pages of newspapers published across the state, making it possible to browse the original issues exactly as readers would have encountered them at the time.
That experience—scrolling through full newspaper pages rather than isolated clippings—was important. The advertisements weren’t just products; they were part of the visual rhythm of the paper: patent medicines beside sewing machines, miracle tonics beside farm tools, all competing for the reader’s attention with equal confidence.
Those fragments of optimism became the foundation for the game.
While the advertisements themselves are the historical anchor of the project, a surprising amount of the work has gone into something much less visible: the instruction booklet.
Designing those instructions became its own project entirely.
Writing Rules That Sound Like They Came From 1881
The goal wasn’t simply to explain how to play a game. I wanted the instructions to feel like they had been printed in the same era as the advertisements themselves. That meant paying attention to details that most modern rulebooks ignore:
- sentence structure modeled after 19th-century pamphlets
- exaggerated politeness and bureaucratic phrasing
- Victorian vocabulary and rhetorical rhythm
- the cadence of public proclamations and printed notices
Rather than a modern “Step 1 / Step 2” instruction style, the booklet reads more like a manual for a dignified parlor exercise. Players do not simply “play cards.” They exhibit Modern Miracles, deliver Intercourse, and observe proper Deportment.
The tone is intentionally straight-faced, even when the content becomes increasingly ridiculous.
Humor That Works on Multiple Levels
Another challenge was designing humor that would land for different types of readers.
Some people enjoy historical references. Others respond to absurdity, satire, or typography jokes. The instructions attempt to operate on several levels at once:
- immediate jokes anyone can understand
- Victorian-style satire for readers who enjoy historical writing
- structural humor that unfolds as the document progresses
- typographic jokes hidden in the layout itself
For example, the booklet gradually shifts from calm instruction into increasingly defensive disclaimers, errata, and editorial corrections. By the end, the document itself begins to behave like a slightly unreliable historical artifact.
The goal was to make the booklet entertaining to read even before the game begins.
Designing the Document as an Artifact
I also spent time thinking about the physical character of the booklet. Many design choices were made deliberately to evoke a late-19th-century pamphlet:
- ornamental typographic dividers
- exaggerated legal disclaimers
- errata entries that appear to correct the document itself
- references to certificates, proclamations, and official notices
Even the table of contents contains a small joke: an entry titled Nothing of Consequence that invites the reader to “see page.” When they finally arrive there, the page quietly contradicts itself.
Little touches like that help the rulebook feel less like a manual and more like a curious printed relic.
A Separate Project From the Printing Blocks
The instruction booklet is actually a separate but parallel project to another part of this work.
Alongside the writing, I’ve been creating laser-engraved printing blocks based on the original 1881 advertisements. These blocks are used for traditional printmaking, allowing the imagery from those historic ads to be physically printed again using modern equipment and to raise funds for the Warren Heritage Society, which maintains a museum, gift shop, and the Laura Virginia Hale Archives containing the history of our county.
That side of the project focuses on:
- preparing historical images for engraving
- laser-cutting relief printing blocks
- experimenting with ink, paper, and press techniques
While the printing blocks bring the advertisements back to life visually, the instruction booklet reconstructs the voice of the era.
Together they create a small ecosystem:
- historical advertisements
- physical printmaking artifacts
- a satirical Victorian-style game manual
Why This Project Matters
Beyond the humor and design experiments, there’s a deeper motivation behind the project.
It is my hope that people are entertained by the game, but also that it sparks curiosity. Those advertisements from 1881 weren’t just marketing—they were fragments of everyday life in a specific place and time. They reflect the hopes, anxieties, inventions, and optimism of people who lived in this community nearly a century and a half ago.
When someone encounters one of these strange remedies or ambitious inventions, it raises natural questions:
Who was selling this?
Who bought it?
What did life here look like at the time?
If the project does its job well, those questions might lead someone to dig a little deeper—into local newspapers, archives, museums, and historical societies. Every town has stories waiting to be rediscovered, and often the smallest artifacts—an advertisement, a notice, a handbill—can open the door to understanding them.
In that sense, the game is meant to be a small seed of curiosity.
An Exercise in Printed Optimism
Working on this booklet has also reminded me how wonderfully confident 19th-century advertising could be. Those old advertisements promised everything: cures, inventions, improvements, miracles.
The Catalog of Modern Miracles game leans into that spirit. Players are encouraged to defend outrageous claims with absolute conviction.
As the booklet puts it:
Confidence is compulsory. Historical accuracy is optional.
In a way, the project is a celebration of that era’s printed optimism—the belief that with enough enthusiasm, persuasive language, and perhaps a well-placed testimonial, almost anything could be made to sound plausible.
And if the game manages to entertain a few people while quietly encouraging them to explore the history of the places they live, then the experiment will have served its purpose.
