Oft-told tales

These two Russian postcards date from 1976, the 250th anniversary of Gulliver. It’s not that the novel was a particular favorite in Russia, says Cunningham, but it had global appeal from the start. (The first translation, into French, appeared in 1727.) The playing cards are from Vienna, probably from the 1970s. They not only tell the story, scene by scene; they also can be used to play a game—whose rules, unfortunately, cannot be deduced from the packaging or the cards.