Modern Chess Fiction
April 1, 2021
In 1951 Kester Svendsen, a professor of English literature at the University of Oklahoma, published “Chess Fiction in English to 1945, a bibliography”.
It contained no fewer than 553 entries, ranging alphabetically from Samuel H. Adams's “Banner by the Roadside” (1944) to Stefan Zweig's “The Royal Game” (also 1944), and going all the way back to William Caxton's “The Right Pleasant and Goodlie Historie of the Four Sons of Aymon” (1489).
Douglas Bett’s Annotated Bibliography of Chess Works Published in the English Language 1850-1968 [1974] has Section 44 – Chess in Fiction. There are 165 entries, with only one as recent as 1965.
There is a Facebook group called Chess Book Collectors. One member, the Swiss, Jean-Marc Horber, recently published a small slide show of his collection of books on chess fiction. It can be seen at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/206305099539809?fref=nf
Scan down the page to find his photos
and he is at:
https://www.facebook.com/jeanmarc.horber
The main point is that we have a genuine collector who has carefully selected modern works of chess fiction (from the past 50 years) and let us see the collection.
I have transcribed the titles, authors and publishers and put them on to an excel spreadsheet. These are listed below.
To ensure accuracy, I checked each book and found, much to my amazement, that they were almost available at either amazon.ca or the sites of the French, German and Italian branches.
This list then becomes for the collector and reader a modern list of chess fiction. If a title is given in one language, it is almost certainly available in English translation somewhere. A couple of hours study will repay anyone who enjoys chess literature.
I am interested in hearing from anyone about specific titles in the list and their experience with them.
Adding other works can be enjoyable work to be undertaken at a later date.
To be continued
April 1, 2021
In 1951 Kester Svendsen, a professor of English literature at the University of Oklahoma, published “Chess Fiction in English to 1945, a bibliography”.
It contained no fewer than 553 entries, ranging alphabetically from Samuel H. Adams's “Banner by the Roadside” (1944) to Stefan Zweig's “The Royal Game” (also 1944), and going all the way back to William Caxton's “The Right Pleasant and Goodlie Historie of the Four Sons of Aymon” (1489).
Douglas Bett’s Annotated Bibliography of Chess Works Published in the English Language 1850-1968 [1974] has Section 44 – Chess in Fiction. There are 165 entries, with only one as recent as 1965.
There is a Facebook group called Chess Book Collectors. One member, the Swiss, Jean-Marc Horber, recently published a small slide show of his collection of books on chess fiction. It can be seen at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/206305099539809?fref=nf
Scan down the page to find his photos
and he is at:
https://www.facebook.com/jeanmarc.horber
The main point is that we have a genuine collector who has carefully selected modern works of chess fiction (from the past 50 years) and let us see the collection.
I have transcribed the titles, authors and publishers and put them on to an excel spreadsheet. These are listed below.
To ensure accuracy, I checked each book and found, much to my amazement, that they were almost available at either amazon.ca or the sites of the French, German and Italian branches.
This list then becomes for the collector and reader a modern list of chess fiction. If a title is given in one language, it is almost certainly available in English translation somewhere. A couple of hours study will repay anyone who enjoys chess literature.
I am interested in hearing from anyone about specific titles in the list and their experience with them.
Adding other works can be enjoyable work to be undertaken at a later date.
- | - | - | ||||
Chess Fiction in the collection of Jean-Marc Horber | Publisher | |||||
- | - | |||||
1 | Suskind, Patrick | - | Ein Kampf | Diogenes | ||
2 | Zemsky, Kenneth | Knight to King 4 | Grace Notes | |||
3 | Bouchard, Jean-Francois | Sombre tango d'un maître d'échecs | Max Milo | |||
4 | Waterman, Andrew | The Poetry of Chess | Anvil | |||
5 | Magnus, Ariel | Die Schachspieler von Buenos Aires | Kiwi | |||
6 | Bulthaupt, Freerk | Öffnungen: Die Lebenszüge des Schachmeisters Greco | Ate | |||
7 | Geilmann, Ulrich | Portrait des Meisters | Der Schachtherapeut | |||
8 | Josten, Gerhard | Aljechins Gambit | Verlag Helmut Ladwig | |||
9 | Nicols, Léon | Le dernier prophète | Presses Litera | |||
10 | Ogawa, Yoko | Schwimmen mit Elefanten | Liebeskind Verlagsbhdlg | |||
11 | Burton, Jeffrey | Der Schachspieler | Heyne Taschenbuch | |||
12 | Bauhaus, Ben | Bullet Schach | Egmont Lyx | |||
13 | K-Fehrmann, Meike | Kakerlaken Schach | Books on Demand | |||
14 | Donoghue John | The Death's Head Chess Club | Picador; | |||
15 | Grozdanovitch, Denis | La vie rêvée du joueur d'échecs | Grasset | |||
16 | Swami, Om | La vie est un jeu d'échecs | Fleurus | |||
17 | Adelmann, Dieter | Montags-Schach | Books on Demand | |||
18 | Tammet, Daniel | Mishenka | les arenas | |||
19 | Klass, David | Siegen kann tödlich sein | Freies Geistesleben GmbH | |||
20 | Kraai, Jesse | Lisa | Zugzwang Press | |||
21 | Maurensig, Pablo | Il Gioco Degli Dei | Einaudi | |||
22 | Maurensig, Pablo | Teoria delle ombre | Adelphi | |||
23 | Maurensig, Pablo | L'Ultima Traversa | Edizioni Theoria | |||
24 | Hoffman, Paul | King's Gambit | Hachette | |||
25 | Hansen, Brooks | The Chess Garden | Star Pine Books | |||
26 | Smith, William Kent | Incident at the Sicilian Dragon | Players Press | |||
27 | Goldowsky, Howard (ed) | Masters of Technique | Mongoose Press | |||
28 | Dubois, Jennifer | Das Leben ist groß | Aufbau Verlag | |||
29 | Keckhut, John | The Dublin Pawn | Norton | |||
30 | Losfeld, Joelle | Échec et mat: Une anthologie de nouvelles policières | Editions Joelle Losfeld | |||
31 | Braun, Yakov | Le Gambit du diable | Cherche midi | |||
32 | Martinez, Guillermo | Roderers Eroffnung | Eichborn Verlag | |||
33 | Delman, David | The Last Gambit | St. Martin's Press | |||
34 | Zelman, Anita | The Right Moves | St. Martin's Press | |||
35 | Nav, Jean Gerard | Le Dilemme de Pelikan | Editions L'Harmattan | |||
36 | Coggins, Mark | The Immortal Game | CreateSpace Independent Publishing | |||
37 | Chesbro, George | King's Gambit | Apache Beach Pubs | |||
38 | Leonhardt, Henrike | Der Taktmesser: Johann Nepomuk Mälzel | Kellner | |||
39 | Walsh, Rodolfo | Die Augen des Verräters | Rotpunktverlag | |||
40 | Eddine, Ilf | Dernière ronde | elyzed | |||
41 | Truzzi, Marcello (ed) | Chess in Literature | Avon | |||
42 | Dormond, Sabine | Les Parricides | Bsn Press | |||
43 | Kosztolonyi, Dezso | Schachmatt: Novellen | Corvina | |||
44 | Edlinger, Karl Andreas | Matt in sieben Zügen: Schachgeschichten aus 12 Ländern | P. Neff | |||
45 | Boito, Arrigo | Le Fou noir suit de Le Poing fermé | mille et une nuits | |||
46 | Zweig, Stefan | Schachnovelle | lulu.com | |||
47 | Malzberg, Barry | Tactics of Conquest | Hachette | |||
48 | Hood, David | Schach und Matt | Droemer Knaur | |||
49 | Chang, Shi-Kuo | Chess King | Aslaplac Books | |||
50 | Lieber, Fritz | A Pail of Air | Aeonian Pr | |||
51 | Mark, Ted | Sex Mates of a Chess Mistress | Dell | |||
52 | Murphy, Warren & Cochran, M | Grandmaster | Forge Books | |||
53 | Perez-Reverte, Arturo | Le Tableau du maître flamand | Livre de Poche | |||
54 | Klein, Gerard | Le Gambit des étoiles | Marabout | |||
55 | Guenter, C. H. | Wotans Rache | Taschenbuch | |||
56 | Saberhagen, Fred (ed) | Pawn to Infinity | Ace Books | |||
57 | Leiber, Fritz | The Change War | Gregg Press | |||
58 | Watson, Ian | Queenmagic, Kingmagic | Immanion | |||
59 | Forster, R. & Steffan, U. | Auf die Dame kommt es an - Schachgeschicten | Unionsverlag | |||
60 | Unamuno, Miguel de | Don Sandalio, Chess player | De Gruyter | |||
61 | Krystufek, Peter | Das flambierte Schachspiel | Beyer Verlag | |||
62 | Krystufek, Peter | Die Lustilinge Vom Schwarz - Weissen Brett | Munster International | |||
63 | Ellinger, Dr. Hans | Tübinger Beiträge zum Thema Schach | Promos | |||
64 | Weil, Bernd | Schach dem Teufel | Books on Demand | |||
65 | Meras, Iccokas | Remis für Sekunden | Aufbau Verlag | |||
66 | Herbstman, Alexander | Das Geheimnis des Schwarzen Königs | Sportverlag | |||
67 | Kotov, Alexander | Belye i chernye | Russkii shakhmatnyi dom | |||
68 | Chapin, Sasha | All the Wrong Moves | McClelland and Stewart | |||
69 | Lovejoy, David | Moral Victories | Echo Publications | |||
70 | Dupuy-Mazuel, H. | Der Schachspieler | Knaur | |||
71 | Lasker, Emanuel | Wie Wanja Meister wurde Eine Erzaehlung aus der Schachwelt | Exzelsior Verlag | |||
72 | Stassi, Fabio | Die Letzte Partie | Kein + Aber | |||
73 | Keyes, Frances Parkinson | The Chess Players | Fawcett Crest | |||
74 | Nikula, Reiner | Tödliches Schach | grafit | |||
75 | Nabokov, Vladimir | Lushins Verteidigung | Rowohlt Taschenbuch | |||
76 | Thirion, Jean-Benoit | Contes de L'Echiquier | Plein Chant | |||
77 | Gohler, Antje | Balcke oder Der hypermoderne Prometheus | Regenbrecht Verlag | |||
78 | Martini, Christiane | Die venezianische Schachspielerin | Piper Taschenbuch | |||
79 | Bunje, Dirk | Der Schachspieler und andere skurrile Geschichten | Books on Demand | |||
80 | Wieteck, Helmut | Das mächtige Spiel | Dreier |
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