Curiously the popularity of Whist in Europe arrived at similar times as the Tarock popularity in Northern countries.
Whist arrived with a similar game fever as the Tarock game. As reason for the English popularity of Whist is assumed, that "A sort treatise on the game of Whist" of Edmond Hoyle in 1742 was very successful (the book had in 1769 already 15 editions). Already in 1743 the text was copied by literary robbery. The book was called the "Gospel of Whist players".
Whist was known and described before, but Hoyle was admired and became a phenomenon. .
From Wikipedia Edmond Hoyle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Hoyle
Zollinger gives the following information: About 200 rules books during 1700-1800 give rules to Whist. 8 of them appeared before 1742, all others were either directly by Hoyle or influenced by him. In an ironical statement of Sarah Fielding in "The adventures of David Simple" (1744) the advice is given, how to "get introduction to persons of fashion". Good clothing, a powdered wig and the Whist-book in the pocket is the solution.Early life undocumented
Little is known about Hoyle's life; he is primarily known through his books. Much of what is written about him is untrue or exaggerated. The suggestion that he trained at the bar seems unfounded.
Treatise on whist
By 1741, Hoyle began to tutor members of high society at the game of whist, selling his students a copy of his manuscript notes. Hoyle expanded the manuscript and published A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist in 1742, selling it for the high price of one guinea. When the book quickly sold out, rather than publish a new edition, Hoyle sold the rights to Whist to bookseller Francis Cogan for 100 guineas, an enormous sum for a small pamphlet. Before Cogan was able to publish a second edition, two printers pirated the work, giving the author as "A Gentleman" rather than Hoyle. The printers disguised their identities by publishing under false names, one as Webster, the other as Webb. Cogan published second and third editions of Whist and two months later, obtained an injunction against the pirates which he announced in a fourth edition (all 1743). To distinguish the genuine editions from the piracies, Cogan paid Hoyle tuppence per copy to autograph the genuine works. Ironically, the piracies were profitable to Hoyle, though a disaster for Cogan who was forced to lower the price of the book to match the pirates and to pay for Hoyle's signature.
Superseded by new rules
The laws of whist published in A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist were regarded as authoritative until 1864, after which time it was superseded by the new rules written by John Loraine Baldwin and adopted by the Arlington and Portland clubs.
Other published works
Cogan published other works by Hoyle: A Short Treatise on the Game of Backgammon (1743), the curious An Artificial Memory for Whist, (1744) and more short treatises on the games of piquet and chess (1744) and quadrille (1744). Cogan became bankrupt in 1745 and sold the Hoyle copyright to Thomas Osborne, who published Hoyle with much more success.
Hoyle wrote a treatise on the game of brag (1751), a book on probability theory (1754), and one on chess (1761). Over time, Hoyle's work pushed off the market Charles Cotton's aging The Compleat Gamester, which had been considered the "standard" English-language reference work on the playing of games – especially gambling games – since its publication in 1674.
Collected edition
In 1748, Osborne stopped publishing the individual treatises, but instead sold a collected edition under the title Mr. Hoyle's Treatises of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess and Back-Gammon. The Whist treatise was described as the "eighth" edition. The "fourteenth" edition (1765) was the last published during Hoyle's lifetime. "Fifteenth" and "sixteenth" editions appeared after his death with the autograph reproduced by woodblock print.
Reprints
The books were frequently reprinted in Ireland, something that was permitted as the English copyright statute, the Statute of Anne, did not extend to Ireland. One edition was printed in Edinburgh. Hoyle's writing was translated into many continental languages; first Portuguese (1753), then German (1754), French (1761), Italian (1768), Russian (1769) and Dutch (1790).
I seems, that Hoyle played a larger role, that Whist changed its social acceptance, the game got another "touch" as it had before.
The continental way of Whist started with the edition of 1750, which is found in many libraries. The first Hoyle translation, as noted above, happened in Portugal and then 1754 in Germany.
Here we meet the same Year-Numbers as in the Tarock phenomenon. For 1750 I found the first literary German Tarock document (the love poem), and for 1754 we have the first Tarock rules published in book form as games collection.
For continental Europe we have, that a bigger Austrian succession war dominated the social life between 1740-48. Likely not a good time to care for English innovations from the German perspective. After 1750, however, when things returned to "normal", naturally German book publishers looked for "good-running businesses" outside of the German market. A literary "proven Game book success in England" might have inspired German imitations, though with different content according fashions, which were expected to sell well in Germany.
So.... likely there is an indirect relation between Tarock and Whist success, just right at the same time. In Germany, however, Whist isn't as successful as Tarock. Tarock is in the games collection of 1754, Whist appears first 1756. Zollinger lists the rules productions for Whist in Germany, which become more at the end of the century (1760 - 1775 - 1776 - 1779 - 1787 - 1787 - 1788 - 1793 - 1794 - 1795 - 1795 - 1795 - 1797 - 1797 - 1798 - 1799 - 1799 -1800), but are rare in relation to German Tarock notes in earlier times (however, I never counted rules descriptions or looked for them).
Only the first ...
France-Switzerland 1761, 1763
Italy 1765
Netherlands 1776
Russia 1769
Danmark 1786