I'm not sure who first had the bright idea to take a perfectly lovely picture, paste it on a piece of cardboard, cut it up in little pieces, shake them all together and then say "Here, put this back together."
I did a little research on this and it turns out that the first jigsaw puzzle is credited to John Spilsbury, a London engraver and map maker. In 1767 he created his first puzzle by gluing a map on wood, then cutting it apart along the country boundaries. Well, that makes sense. US maps have long been used as educational tools to teach students United States geography. But those are not 1,000 piece puzzles.
In case you haven't guessed, my spouse and I are currently engaged in putting together a jigsaw puzzle. A few weeks ago I was looking through stuff stacked on our living room shelves and came upon six nicely boxed, some never opened, jigsaw puzzles. I took one of the puzzles down to our basement rec room where there is a nice big table and plenty of light, and left it sitting there in its box, thinking it might sit there until winter. Not So. My spouse, it turns out, really likes jigsaw puzzles. He started putting it together a few days ago. Puzzle boxes should come with a warning (CAUTION, ADDICTIVE). It's only a 550 piece puzzle, of a colorful French village, easy right? Not really, it has some very tricky shaped pieces. We spent about three hours working on it this evening, then I quit to come up and write this blog, after having put about twenty pieces in the right spots. As far as I know, he's still down there. I don't think he'll finish it tonight but who knows. I don't call him my wonder spouse for nothing.
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