Chess

ii+232 pages with diagrams, index and tables. Quarto (10 1/2" x 6 3/4") bound in half leather over original boards with gilt lettered spine label. Annotations by Leopold Hoffer. Provenance Glasgow Chess Club (Betts: 7-36) Limited to 500 copies. First edition.The London 1899 chess tournament was without a doubt one of the very strongest tournaments ever held on British soil. Almost every great master of the day was present including the past and reigning world champions. It proved to be the swan song of the old champion Wilhelm Steinitz but for Emanuel Lasker it was a glittering success which propelled him way beyond the other grandmasters of the time.
All important players were invited. Many of these players were the champions of the country that they represented. Refusals came from Siegbert Tarrasch and Rudolf Charousek (illness). The businessman Amos Burn had to withdraw at the opening's day. Fifteen participants played double rounds from 30 May to 10 July 1899, except for Richard Teichmann. He… Read More

[i-ii]-314+[2 ad] pages with diagrams. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in black cloth with original wrapper laid on front cover, faded label to spine. Volume I. Edited by W N Potter with the cooperation of H E Bird, J H Blackburne, B Horwitz, J Lowenthal, W Steinitz, J Wisker and J H Zukertort. From the library of Koninklijke Bibliotheek .(Betts: 7-20) 1st edition.Published from February 1874 through March 1876, volumes one through volume three, numbers one through 25. Volume number run from February through January. J Wisker edited March 1876 issue only.Condition:Some foxing through out, points rubbed else a good to very good copy.

xxxiii+[2]+251 pages with diagrams. Small octavo (7" 4 1/2") bound in original pebbled cloth with gilt lettering to spine. (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana:495) First edition.George Walker (13 March 1803 – 23 April 1879) was an English chess player and author of The Celebrated Analysis of A D Philidor (London, 1832), The Art of Chess-Play: A New Treatise on the Game of Chess (London, 1832), A Selection of Games at Chess played by Philidor (London, 1835), Chess Made Easy (London, 1836), and Chess Studies (London, 1844). In 1839 visited Paris and the Café de la Régence, where he lost (+1-2) a short match to Boncourt. In 1845, he teamed up with Henry Thomas Buckle, William Davies Evans, George Perigal, and William Josiah Tuckett in London in two telegraph games (one win and one draw) against a team of Howard Staunton and Hugh Alexander Kennedy in Portsmouth. He won a match against Daniel Harrwitz (7-5) at London 1846. Walker used his column in Bell's Life to propagate organizing… Read More

London: J. M. Richardson, 1817. Hardcover. Very Good. Leather-backed boards with marbled foredges with original hinges, bound to imitate a 2 volume folio set of leather bound books. With all 32 original wooden chess pieces (and two extras), and 28 backgammon pieces, ancient leather-covered dice-shaking cup with 5 old dice, and W. Lewis' two volume set 'Oriental Chess' (1817) which was found within the box when we purchased it. The 2 books are in Very Good condition. The leather box is dry, rubbed and flaking and could use some restoration, but in all a Very Good set. Digital images available upon request.

343 pages with woodcut printer's device on title. Duodecimo (5 1/2 x 3 1/4). Bound in leather with raised spine bands and gilt to spine. Originally written in 1619 in Italian. From the library of Lothar Schmid. [Biblioteca van Der Niemeijeriana: 400] Third French edition.Gioachino Greco, also known as Il Calabrese, was born around 1600 in Celico, which near Cosenza in Calabria. Calabria had already produced such players as Leonardo di Bono and Michele di Mauro. From his writing it's apparent the he wasn't educated and likely came from a lower class family. Already in 1619, Greco started keeping a notebook of tactics and particularly clever games and he took up the custom of giving copies of his manuscripts to his wealthy patrons. In Rome Monsignor Corsino della casa Minutoli Tegrini, Cardinal Savelli and Monsignor Francisco Buoncompagni all received copies (of which there are extant copies, dated 1620 in the Corsiniana library in Rome, under the title, Trattato del nobilissimo gioco de scacchi).… Read More

ix+400 pages with frontispiece, one illustration and diagrams and index. Royal octavo (9 3/4" x 6 3/4") bound in original brown cloth with gilt lettering to spine. (Betts: 6-33) First edition.Also published in New York, Stechart, 1915. Includes an account of chess in Iceland (chapters: Polar chess, Chess in the sagas, The story of Frithiof) whence it came from England in the 12th century, and it developed peculiarities in rule and nomenclature which existed until the 19th century. Only part (about on-seventh) of the book concerns chess, the remainder ("Stray notes") deals with the Europeans history of a group of other games: draughts, fox and geese, tables, merelles, or the morris game, etc.Fiske was born on November 11, 1831 in Ellisburg, New York. He attended Cazenovia Seminary, New York and Hamilton college in Clinton, New York. During his sophomore year, he left Hamilton to study Scandinavian languages in Europe, supporting himself as a correspondent for the New York Tribune. He spent his last two… Read More

186 pages with diagrams. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5") bound in quarter red cloth and black pebbled boards with Dobbs hand written title to front cover. Original manuscript.Gilbert Dobbs, throughout his interest in chess composition, kept log-books of his composition. This is one of the many log-books he created. It has at least one problem for each page of the book. He numbered these as he composed them. The problems were hand stamped with solutions below. As some became published the publication name and date is noted beside the problem. In addition to the hand written problems, there are some clipped newspaper chess columns secure in an archival sleeve and a few loose ones as well. laid in Some of his friends and other problemist names and addresses on pastedowns. These log-books were given to Frederick Gamage and friend and a protégé of A C White as was Dobbs.Gilbert S. Dobbs (Richmond, Kentucky, December 6 1867 - Carrollton, Georgia, February 14 1941) was a minister and chess composer. Son of a… Read More

320 pages with diagrams and index. Octavo (8 1/4" x 5 1/2") bound in half leather with gilt lettering to spine. Subscription to The New Chess Magazine, which became the publication of the British Chess Magazine laid in. Volume 8. (Betts: 7-15) First edition.The Huddersfield College Magazine chess section was superseded by the British Chess Magazine after 1880 with no more published. First published as volume one in October 1872 and issued monthly until September 1880, it was edited by W J C Miller from October 1872 to June 1876 and John Watkinson from July 1876 until 1880. One of the earlier chess magazine published.Condition:Heavily rubbed at edges, corners bumped and rubbed through, damaged to front hinge, soiled, some occasional internal soiling, front inner hinge cracked. Over all a good copy of a scarce chess item

280 pages with signed plates diagrams, tables, photographs and index. Royal Octavo (9 3/4" x 6 1/2") bound in original publisher's reddish brown cloth with gilt lettering to spine and front cover. Forewords by A De Roos and T Rutten. Preface by H J Van Steenis. With the handwritten signatures of all 20 participants: by the former world champion M. Euwe and the grandmasters Johannes H. Donner, Svetozar Gligoric, Albéric O'Kelly, Miguel Najdorf, Herman Pilnik, Vasja Pirc, Samuel Reshevsky, Nicolas Rossolimo, Gideon Stahlberg, Savielly Tartakower, Petar Trifunovic and the international masters CB van den Berg, Jan Foltys, Harry Golombek, Cenek Kottnauer, Haije Kramer, Theo D. van Scheltinga, Eugenio Szabados and by Gudmundur S. Gudmundsson (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 5791) First edition signed edition limited to 100 copies.
In the winter of 1950 Lodewijk Prins, backed by a committee presided over by Hendrik Jan Van Steenis, organized an international chess tournament that was held at the… Read More

1 page handwritten protocol (in Sherwin's hand) of the game Fischer – Sherwin in the 9th round of the 15th US Chess Championship in New York on December 29th. 1962. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 1/4") original score signed by Fischer.

This was Robert Fischer's fifth win of the title, and this tournament also served as the Zonal Tournament.

Fischer, Reshevsky and Evans all lost their first round games. This was Fischer's first loss in a US Championship. This would require him to play catch-up to Arthur Bisguier, who held the lead until round 9, when they were tied at 6.5 points. They both drew in round 10 and had to face each other in the final round, where Fischer won to take the title, and Bisguier took second place.

Tying for third were Reshevsky, Evans and Addison. This required that they meet in a playoff to decide the third spot in the Amsterdam Interzonal (1964). Reshevsky defeated both opponents 1.5/2 to earn the spot.

Bisguier, having finished second, was entitled to go to the Interzonal. However,… Read More

One sheet photograph signed. Small octavo (6 3/4" x 4 1/4") photograph from a book signed by Richard Reti at the top. From the collection of the French journalist/writer Raymond Lhoste.

Richard Selig Réti was an Austro-Hungarian, later Czechoslovakian, chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies. He was one of the principal proponents of hypermodernism in chess. With the exception of Nimzowitsch's book My System, he is considered to be the movement's foremost literary contributor.

Condition: Signed Her R Reti. Some light edge wear else very good to fine. Reti signatures are quite scarce.

148 pages with pictorial title and diagrams. Small octavo (7 3/4"x 5 1/4") bound in period half leather with gilt lettering to spine with four raised spine bands over pebbled cloth. Lacks number VIII pages, 97-116 and number X (December issue) is bound out of order. From the library of Borje Borjesson. (Betts: 7-14) Volume 1. First edition.Title variations: numbers 1-73 Dubuque Chess Journal; numbers 74-84, 99-106 Brownson's Chess Journal; numbers 85-98, 107-160 The Chess Journal. Publication suspended from 1876 to December 1877, when it was superseded by The American Chess Journal, which commenced publication as number 74; resumed publication, simultaneously, as Brownson's Chess Journal with the February 1877 issue, also number 74. Publication also suspended between 1878 and 1886. Numbers 133-160 have caption title Brownson's Chess Journal. The Dubuque Chess Journal was a widely respected publication edited by Orestes Augustus Brownson and was published in the offices of the Dubuque Herald from… Read More

Black-and-white reprint of a postcard with a caricature by Halldór Pétursson (on the World Championship fight in Reykjavik 1972), chess motif stamp and date postmark on the Fischer - Spasski competition in Sveti Stefan 1992. (4" x 5 3/4") On the back with 7 handwritten signatures: by the former world chess champions Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky with Lothar Schmid, Svetozar Gligoric, Yuri Balashov, Eugenio Torre and the international master and chess trainer Alexander Nikitin. The caricature shows an energetic Fischer, who uses flashes of inspiration to guide his pieces to attack and influences the anxious looking Spassky.
The World Chess Championship 1972 was a match for the World Chess Championship between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. The match took place in the Laugardalshöll arena in Reykjavík, Iceland, and has been dubbed the Match of the Century.
The 1992 Fischer–Spassky match between former world chess champions… Read More

xxxii+163 pages with half-title and engraved title,. Small octavo (7 1/2" x 4 1/2" bound in half white leather with spine labels in brown with gilt letter over marbled boards. (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 425) First Dutch edition.
Philipp Stamma, an Assyrian native of Aleppo, Ottoman Syria, later resident of England and France, was a chess master and a pioneer of modern chess. His reputation rests largely on his authorship of the early chess book Essai sur le jeu des echecs published 1737 in France (English translation: The Noble Game Of Chess 1745). This book brought the Middle Eastern concept of the endgame to the attention of Europe and helped revive European interest in the study of the endgame.
Stamma was a regular at Slaughter's Coffee House in St Martin's Lane, London, a center of 18th-century English chess, and was considered one of England's strongest players. He was defeated quite handily by Philidor in a famous match in 1747, which marked the beginning of Philidor's rise to… Read More

164 pages with frontispiece, diagrams and indices. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's green cloth with gilt lettering to cover and blind-stamped embossed cover decoration. From the library of Harold James Ruthven Murray. (Betts 25-6; Bibliotheca van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 5193) First edition.
Includes the a selection of 37 games from the Congress of London 1866 (Challenge Cup: 1. de Vere; 2. MacDonnell. Handicap: 1. Steinitz and Green), 46 from the Dundee Congress in 1867 (Challenge Cup: 1. Neumann; 2. Steinitz. Handicap: 1. Steinitz and Fraser), 14 games in the Steinitz - Anderssen competition in 1866 (Steinitz won 8:6 and was then considered " "best player" in the world) and 64 problems.
The Dundee tournament is reckoned as the fourth ever international tournament of modern times. The first of modern chess is perhaps Madrid 1575, under the patronage of Phillip II, won by Leonardo ahead of Ruy Lopez. There is a match tournament at Paris in 1821 between Deschappelles,… Read More