The first part of this chapter presents a summary of early history of the phenomenon of matchstick puzzles, from its beginning in the Year 1850 to the appearance of ground-breaking book Tromholt “Matchstick games. Mental activity and entertainment”, published in the Year 1889 (Tromholt 1889). In the beginning geometric matchstick puzzles were published as single entertainment pastime in diverse journals and newspapers. In the Year 1865 German school teacher Werner published the first article with various matchstick puzzles proposing them as learning activities in home schooling. This idea was overtaken very soon by book authors like Ferdinand Braun (Der junge Mathematiker und Naturforscher. Verlag von Otto Spamer, 1876) and Louis Mittenzwey (Mathematische Kurzweil. Julius Klinkhardt, 1880) whose books prepared the stage for the book of Tromholt. Important contributions of Tromholt’s book to the world of matchstick puzzles will be analyzed in Chap. 5 . The second part of this chapter describes the results of a critical review of a few recent books on matchstick puzzles.