Jeanne l’Hachette

Published April 29, 2023 • Updated April 29, 2023

Jeanne l’Hachette reprint of 19th century transformation deck, Denmark, 1976.

This is a 1976 reprint by J. Chr. Sorensen of Copenhagen of a transformation pack originally published by B.P. Grimaud of Paris in the middle of the 19th century. The pack was designed by E. le Tellier and lithographed by Belin (whose names appear on the king of hearts).

The pack is sometimes erroneously called the Jeanne d’Arc pack due to the mis-identification of the figure on the queen of spades. This figure is actually the French heroine known as Jeanne Fourquet and nicknamed Jeanne Hachette (b. 1456) who initiated the successful defence of the town of Beauvais in 1472 against the siege of Charles le Temeraire (1433-1477), Duke of Burgundy.

The cards have square corners, no indices and plain backs. There are two information cards in English and Danish. See the box►

Jeanne l’Hachette mid-19th century transformation deck reprinted by J. Chr. Sorensen of Copenhagen, 1976

Above: Jeanne l’Hachette mid-19th century transformation deck reprinted by J. Chr. Sorensen of Copenhagen, 1976.

For more information and illustrations see: Field, Albert Transformation playing cards (1987), p. 116-118. • See the info card►

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By Peter Burnett

United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022

I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.

• Russian Playing Cards

Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.

Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.