Tweet
In the past week I have received volumes of interest to collectors. Looking at them briefly, these are my impressions:
The first is a handsome two-volume set in a slipcase of David DeLucia’s Chess Library, entitled In Memoriam. The first big volume (482 pp) has photos on art paper of manuscripts, books, magazines and pamphlets from the 15th to 20th centuries. Philidor, Greco, Stamma and Ponziani are in the early part with Alain C. White and his publications bringing up the rear, so to speak. You can see a photo of the very rare Robert Braune book, the rarest of A.C. White’s Christmas Series. But the most expensive book in the volume is not on chess at all but baseball – Henry Chadwick’s The Game of Base Ball (1868) and worth between $10,000 to $20,000 currently (for a first edition). Chadwick also wrote a book on chess.
The second volume (635 pp) has photos of books, score sheets, letters, photographs, autographed postcards &c of the great players. The ones that caught my eye were Alekhine, Botvinnik, Capablanca, Euwe, Fine, Fischer, Lasker, Morphy, Marshall, Nimzowitsch, Petrosian, Reti, Spassky and Troitzky. Well, I am rather partial to Troitzky. The original score sheet of D. Byrne – R. Fischer, Game of the Century, October 17, 1956 is there. The score sheet of Reti’s win over Capablanca at New York 1924 is also there.
Looking through these books is like visiting a museum of modern chess – enjoyable and informative. Buying them requires a sizeable piece of cash though.
The other book is William Lombardy’s Understanding Chess – My System, My Games, My Life.
It is a paperback, 312 pages with 119 of his games, starting with one against Jack Collins in 1953 and ending with a 156-mover against Deep Shredder in 2009. The annotations have a huge amount of text in them and are all the more interesting for that. There is no game with Fischer but ones with the American elite, also Botvinnik, Timman, Suttles, Fuster, Vaitonis and Frank Anderson.
The book is privately printed and has to be obtained from the author. I wrote to him mentioning my admiration of him when I was a teenager and he was winning the World Junior Championship in Toronto in August of 1957 and he wrote back with a charming note and dedication.
At first glance it seems like the best book on American chess to come out in decades. It is different.
The two sources for the In Memoriam volumes are given in today’s Chess Notes. See:
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/i...n_Memoriam_C.N.
The source of William Lombardy’s book is given at:
http://jimwestonchess.blogspot.com/2...-lombardy.html
The first is a handsome two-volume set in a slipcase of David DeLucia’s Chess Library, entitled In Memoriam. The first big volume (482 pp) has photos on art paper of manuscripts, books, magazines and pamphlets from the 15th to 20th centuries. Philidor, Greco, Stamma and Ponziani are in the early part with Alain C. White and his publications bringing up the rear, so to speak. You can see a photo of the very rare Robert Braune book, the rarest of A.C. White’s Christmas Series. But the most expensive book in the volume is not on chess at all but baseball – Henry Chadwick’s The Game of Base Ball (1868) and worth between $10,000 to $20,000 currently (for a first edition). Chadwick also wrote a book on chess.
The second volume (635 pp) has photos of books, score sheets, letters, photographs, autographed postcards &c of the great players. The ones that caught my eye were Alekhine, Botvinnik, Capablanca, Euwe, Fine, Fischer, Lasker, Morphy, Marshall, Nimzowitsch, Petrosian, Reti, Spassky and Troitzky. Well, I am rather partial to Troitzky. The original score sheet of D. Byrne – R. Fischer, Game of the Century, October 17, 1956 is there. The score sheet of Reti’s win over Capablanca at New York 1924 is also there.
Looking through these books is like visiting a museum of modern chess – enjoyable and informative. Buying them requires a sizeable piece of cash though.
The other book is William Lombardy’s Understanding Chess – My System, My Games, My Life.
It is a paperback, 312 pages with 119 of his games, starting with one against Jack Collins in 1953 and ending with a 156-mover against Deep Shredder in 2009. The annotations have a huge amount of text in them and are all the more interesting for that. There is no game with Fischer but ones with the American elite, also Botvinnik, Timman, Suttles, Fuster, Vaitonis and Frank Anderson.
The book is privately printed and has to be obtained from the author. I wrote to him mentioning my admiration of him when I was a teenager and he was winning the World Junior Championship in Toronto in August of 1957 and he wrote back with a charming note and dedication.
At first glance it seems like the best book on American chess to come out in decades. It is different.
The two sources for the In Memoriam volumes are given in today’s Chess Notes. See:
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/i...n_Memoriam_C.N.
The source of William Lombardy’s book is given at:
http://jimwestonchess.blogspot.com/2...-lombardy.html
Comment