Puzzle Poems from Golden Days for Boys and Girls

This popular children’s story paper (published from 1880 to 1907) featured a weekly section titled “Puzzledom.” The editor solicited puzzles and published solutions submitted by readers. Finding the solution to puzzle poems typically involves rhyming riddles, in which words have more than one meaning, clues that hint at a keyword or phrase, and anagrams that require rearranging the letters of a given word or phrase.

Example Puzzle Poem and Solution

Puzzle No. 5 A Transposition.

Golden Days : for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 36, August 6, 1887.

Answer: Talent, latent.

Golden Days : for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 37, August 13, 1887.

Try your hand at solving these Villa Nova (T. A. Daly) puzzle poems

Answers will appear in next week’s blog post!

Puzzle No. 7 Charade.

Golden Days : for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 37, August 13, 1887.

Puzzle No. 9 Anagram.

Golden Days : for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 40, September 3, 1887.

Puzzle No. 5 Charade.  

Golden Days : for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 44, October 1, 1887.

Puzzle No. 9 Double-Word Enigma.  

Golden Days : for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 22, April 30, 1887.

Golden Days poem featured in HBO series Boardwalk Empire

Golden Days for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 25, May 21, 1887.

The first episode of the final season (e1s5) of Boardwalk Empire opens with the main character having a flashback to himself as a boy in 1880’s Atlantic City. The scene opens and closes with a voiceover of the poem “Be Honest and True” by George Birdseye read aloud from Golden Days for Boys and Girls, v. VIII, no. 25, May 21, 1887. This episode of Boardwalk Empire illustrates the incredible popularity and influence of Golden Days story papers during the late 19^th century.