According to Hoyle Day
The rules of play of many card games were made clear to those in high society by Edmond Hoyle, who lived from 1672 to 1769, and who wrote a number of books on the subject of games and their rules, as well as books about how to master certain aspects of the trickier games.
Whist, a card game, became particularly popular in the 18th century in England and continued as a genteel pastime throughout the 19th century, being supplanted by bridge sometime around the turn of the 20th century.
Hoyle tutored members of society in the game and gave his pupils pages from the manuscript of a book that was published in 1742, called A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. His study didn’t stop there, and some years later he published a follow-up book called An Artificial Memory. Or, an Easy Method of Assisting the Memory of Those That Play at the Game of Whist. To Which are Added, Several Cases not Hitherto Publish'd. By Edmund Hoyle, Gent.
Whist is often mentioned as being played at the parties of various characters in Jane Austen’s novels. And indeed, Austen used a choice of card games as an indication or expression of character; whist being a “thinker’s” game, while “lottery tickets” or “casino” were more games of chance.
Hoyle wrote treatises on the correct way to play a wide variety of card games, and eventually these were gathered into a collection Mr. Hoyle's Treatises of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess and Back-Gammon.
By the 19th century, the phrase playing “according to Hoyle” had come to mean strictly playing by the rules in just about any endeavor.