BBC Wordhunt - Antedatings

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

"back to square one"  OED has 1960

[review of] _The American Economy, 1860- 1940_, review written by E. M.
Hugh-Jones, The Economic Journal, Vol. 62, No. 246 (Jun., 1952), pp. 411
col 1.

"Withal he has the problem of maintaining the interest of a reader who
is being always sent back to square one in a sort of intellectual game
of snakes and ladders."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org