There were three editions of the Oblique Strategies produced in limited edition and made available for sale.

Edition 1 (1975) was a signed and numbered edition of 500

Edition 2 (1978), an edition of unknown size (500 or 1000 probably)

Edition 3 (1979), also an edition of unknown size.

It appears that at least some of the first edition decks of the Oblique Strategies were made available through import mail-order companies (although my informant (RickTX@swbell.net. Thanks, Rick) doesn't remember who. I'm betting that it was Jem, given the dates) in addition to whatever direct sales there may have been. The later editions were offered for sale through Opal. The final announcement of the availability of the Oblique Strategies concerns the final remaining copies of the third edition, and appears in issue number 9 of "Opal Information", dated June 1988. The price for the third edition deck at that time was:

£16.50 (UK, Eire)

£17.OO (Europe)

£18.00 (N. and S. America, Africa)

£18.40 (Australia and Japan)

Each of the three versions of the Oblique Strategies decks varies slightly, as suggested by the introductory blurb which comes with the deck.

And that is the case - each subsequent version of the deck added cards, dropped some, and reworded or edited existing Strategies.

In the recently published diary "A Year With Swollen Appendices," [Faber and Faber, 1996], Brian describes the Oblique Strategies as follows:

"...The original box, which we published in 1975, contained 113 cards, but since they some have been omitted and new ones have been added. Peter Schmidt died in early 1980, and since then I've been the curator of the Oblique Strategies. They have been published three times in English and also in French and Japanese. They have also been produced as a floppy disc. No two releases are exactly identical - cards come and go."

The untimely death of Peter Schmidt while on holiday in Spain in 1980 meant that no later versions of the Oblique Strategies could be made as a collaborative activity between Eno and his friend and teacher. And, with the exception of a privately commissioned and produced fourth edition (which was never offered for sale), no further editions of the deck have been produced. At present, there are no plans to produce another version of the deck (with the possible exception of rumours of a Japanese language edition which may appear someday) for sale. For more on your possible quest to acquire a copy of the Oblique Strategies, click here.

The First Three Editions - a Text Listing

One of the novel features of this site is Oblique Stratigraphy - your cyberopportunity to traverse a kind of stratigraphic representation of the four editions of the Oblique Strategies and discover for yourself the play of addition, omission and alteration over the course of time. However, some of you may be primarily interested in the contents of each of the Oblique Strategy decks as text. This page helpfully provides you with the following listings:

Although the privately commissioned fourth edition is described elsewhere, I am including a text listing of it as well.

An Homage to the Missing Collaborator