Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - January - 2008 Issue
Antiquarian Chess Literature from The Book Collector
King Charles should have focused on chesse-play, not politics.
Philip Stamma may have lost to Philidor, but he was still one of the best, so half a century after he died, they were still publishing his Stamma on the Game of Chess. Item 9 is an 1819 second edition. $700.
The first tournament took place in London in 1851. The first American tournament occurred in 1857, and it is recalled by Daniel Willard Fiske in The Book of the First American Chess Congress, published in 1859. The winner was the top American player of the era, Paul Morphy, who also was noted for playing blindfolded. Along with recounting the tournament, Fiske's book tells about the history of chess in America, including the views of Benjamin Franklin (was there anything he was not expert upon?). Item 31. $700.
The greats of the world gathered in 1895 for the Hastings Chess Tournament. The first, now former world champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, was there. So was the current champion, Emanuel Lasker, who had taken the title from Steinitz a year earlier and would be champion until 1921. All of the top players were there, but when the tournament ended, the surprise winner was an American, 22-year-old Harry Nelson Pillsbury. Pillsbury was a brilliant man, playing as many as 22 games simultaneously, and, of course, playing flawlessly while blindfolded. Unfortunately, he contacted syphilis, and his health soon began to deteriorate. Pillsbury never reached his potential, dying at age 33. Item 67 is The Hastings Tournament 1895… edited by Horace Fabian Cheshire, published in 1896. $250.
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