Solitaire, also called patience, often refers to single-player card games involving a layout of cards with a goal of sorting them in some manner. However it is possible to play the same games competitively (often a head to head race) and cooperatively. The games are generally referred to as "patience" in British English and "solitaire" in American English. The term solitaire is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout of tiles, pegs or stones rather than cards. These games include Peg solitaire and Shanghai solitaire.

These games typically involve dealing cards from a shuffled deck into a prescribed arrangement on a tabletop, from which the player attempts to reorder the deck by suit and rank through a series of moves transferring cards from one place to another under prescribed restrictions. Some games allow for the reshuffling of the deck(s), and/or the placement of cards into new or "empty" locations.

Solitaire has its own terminology; see solitaire terminology.

There are many different solitaire games, but the term "solitaire" is often used to refer specifically to the most well-known form, called "Klondike". Klondike and some other solitaire games have been adapted into two-player competitive games. See List of solitaire card games for more.

There is a vast array of variations on the solitaire/patience theme, using either one or more decks of cards, with rules of varying complexity and skill levels. Many of these have been converted to electronic form and are available as computer games. Basic forms of Klondike solitaire and FreeCell come with every current installation of Microsoft Windows. Many software solitaire collections can be downloaded from the internet at no charge.

History

Like the origin of playing cards, the origin of patience is uncertain. The game is most likely German or Scandinavian in origin. It became popular in France in the early 19th Century reaching England and America in the latter half. Patience was first mentioned in literature shortly after tarot layouts were develeped circa 1765. The earliest known recording of a game of patience occurred in 1783 in the German game anthology Das neue Königliche L'Hombre-Spiel. Before this, there was no literary mentions in large game compendiums such as Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester (1674) and Abbé Bellecour's Academie des Jeux (1674).

Napoleon was said to have "played patience" during his exile, however from written accounts he played Vingt-Un, Piquet, and Whist but not Patience. The story is thought to have arisen from a misinterpretation. Many solitaire games were named after him, such as Napoleon at St. Helena, Napoleon's Square, etc.

The first collection of solitaire card games in the English language is attributed to Lady Adelaide Cadogan through her Illustrated Games of Patience, published in about 1870 and reprinted several times. Other collections quickly followed such as Patience by E. D. Cheney, Amusements for Invalids by Annie B. Henshaw (1870), and later Dick's Games of Patience, published by Dick and Fitzgerald. Other books about solitaire written towards the end of the 19th century were by H. E. Jones (a.k.a. Cavendish), Angelo Lewis (a.k.a. Professor Hoffman), Basil Dalton, Ernest Bergholt, and Mary Whitmore Jones.