Tweet
The A.C. White Christmas Series
The series ran from 1905 through 1936. The publisher of the series was chess composer and enthusiast Alain Campbell White (1880-1951). A. C. White sent most books of the series to his friends as Christmas gifts. But they were offered for sale, too. The series consists of 44 books on problems. Most books are hard covers, bound in red cloth with gold lettering, usually written in English, sometimes in German and French and one was partially in Czech.
Some of the titles are: Tasks and Echoes, 100 Chess Problems by William Meredith, The White Knights, Asymmetry, Sam Loyd and His Chess Problems and Valves and Bivalves. Two that are almost never seen for sale on the used book market are Retrograde Analysis and the Robert Braune book, described below. A facsimile edition of the latter is available.
Almost every chess book collector worth his salt has tried his hand at getting the whole 44. After decades collecting, I have about 30. Perhaps, with determination, I might reach 40 in the next few years.
This interesting note on the Braune book appeared at the Ken Whyld site recently:
Today (May 7) marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Lusitania which was torpedoed 11 miles west of Ireland on 7th May 1915. The ship was apparently carrying many copies of Robert Braune, Apôtre de la Symétrie by Alain C White and published by Librairie De La Stratégie in Paris 1913. Robert McWilliam of the British Chess Problem Society claimed, in a letter to Bob Meadley, that 500 copies had been lost but this figure has been disputed by Meadley in his extremely interesting "A Letter to Bert" suggesting that the total print run would have only been about 300.
This has always been given as the explanation for the scarcity of this edition of the "Christmas Series", however, the ship was travelling from New York to London and quite why many copies of this book, which was presumably printed in France, were on board is a mystery to me.
The fact remains that "Robert Braune" is by far the rarest of the Christmas Series and a copy sold at the Klittich auction in June 2014 for 2,200 euros.
Michael Clapham
From: http://www.kwabc.org/index.php/17-la...-rms-lusitania
The series ran from 1905 through 1936. The publisher of the series was chess composer and enthusiast Alain Campbell White (1880-1951). A. C. White sent most books of the series to his friends as Christmas gifts. But they were offered for sale, too. The series consists of 44 books on problems. Most books are hard covers, bound in red cloth with gold lettering, usually written in English, sometimes in German and French and one was partially in Czech.
Some of the titles are: Tasks and Echoes, 100 Chess Problems by William Meredith, The White Knights, Asymmetry, Sam Loyd and His Chess Problems and Valves and Bivalves. Two that are almost never seen for sale on the used book market are Retrograde Analysis and the Robert Braune book, described below. A facsimile edition of the latter is available.
Almost every chess book collector worth his salt has tried his hand at getting the whole 44. After decades collecting, I have about 30. Perhaps, with determination, I might reach 40 in the next few years.
This interesting note on the Braune book appeared at the Ken Whyld site recently:
Today (May 7) marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Lusitania which was torpedoed 11 miles west of Ireland on 7th May 1915. The ship was apparently carrying many copies of Robert Braune, Apôtre de la Symétrie by Alain C White and published by Librairie De La Stratégie in Paris 1913. Robert McWilliam of the British Chess Problem Society claimed, in a letter to Bob Meadley, that 500 copies had been lost but this figure has been disputed by Meadley in his extremely interesting "A Letter to Bert" suggesting that the total print run would have only been about 300.
This has always been given as the explanation for the scarcity of this edition of the "Christmas Series", however, the ship was travelling from New York to London and quite why many copies of this book, which was presumably printed in France, were on board is a mystery to me.
The fact remains that "Robert Braune" is by far the rarest of the Christmas Series and a copy sold at the Klittich auction in June 2014 for 2,200 euros.
Michael Clapham
From: http://www.kwabc.org/index.php/17-la...-rms-lusitania
Comment