The Gamester... The Story of Poor Tricket the Gamester..

Rare transportation chapbook: its subject is further explained on the verso of the title-page: "The story of poor Tricket the gamester. Shewing how... his gaming was the occasion of his being transported as a convict to Botany Bay". An ephemeral popular account of transportation to Botany Bay, this is by its nature elusive. Chapbooks were printed on cheap paper and sold at less than a penny each by chapmen or peddlers. Often illustrated with a crude woodcut on the title-page, they frequently had a moralising tone, as with this tale of a life of gaming and crime and subsequent transportation to Botany Bay.

This work was issued by the Cheap Repository of Moral and Religious Tracts, which began publications in March 1795. Initiated by the zeal of Hannah More and Horace Walpole, the works were designed to be distributed among the poor and worthy. More's idea in publishing the works was, in large part, to combat the explosion in popular chapbooks of a less wholesome tone. Although all works in the series are now more famous for their reputedly anti-Jacobin stance, taken together they are evidently more concerned with more traditional vices like gambling and drinking (Susan Pedersen, "Hannah More meets Simple Simon", Journal of British Studies, 1986).

It was later collected in the Cheap Repository Shorter Tracts of 1798. No author has ever been ascribed.