If we have to trace back the roots of our hobby, the 19th century Prussian High Staff Kriegspiel manual is probably the starting point, but it was the famous English science fiction writer HG Wells who can rightly claim to be the father of modern miniature wargaming.
This nice little article published in the BBC website retells the story of Little Wars, the first wargaming rules set compedium created and edited by the great writer himself.... and the most shocking of all is that for the first time in a long time, wargaming is put in good light in public media!!!
In any case, you can get the text for free at tne Project Gutemberg website but I recommend the very lovely edited Kindle version together with its companion book Floor Games the latter also for free at Amazon. Despite being already a century old (it was published in 1913) readers will be surprised to see how much wisdom was put in this book and will easily recognise some key features of many modern wargames sets.
Thanks for posting this.
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