Mr. Hoyle's Games of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess, and Back-Gammon … by Hoyle, Edmond - 1765

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

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

London: A. Millar, 1736. 219 pp., includes both the fold-out frontispiece and the portrait of the author. Boards detatched but present; well-worn, old tape marks. Front board with a chipped free endpaper taped to it; a bookplate on pastedown. Chipping to spine ends. Frontispiece with tears to edges at upper right, and starting to separate from text block at top.. Leather.

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

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

[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.

viii+398 pages with diagrams. Octavo (9" x 6 1/4") bound in half leather with three raised spine bands and gilt lettering to spine.From the library of James J Barrett. Volume II. (Bibliotheca van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 6389) (Hagedorn: 36) First edition.Fiske's Chess Monthly, launched when he was just twenty five years of age, was an outstanding periodical when first published between 1857 and 1861, probably the best in the English language up to that time, and for a long time thereafter; (John Keeble wrote in The British Chess Magazine in November 1931, page 496, "it is safe to say that [Fiske's] magazine remains to this day the most interesting thing of the kind ever issued"), and, 160 years later, it is still an extraordinarily interesting read for chess history and literature devotees. The Problem Department by E B Cook. This was one of the first magazines published in America. It was started in 1857 and lasted until 1861. It was published at the height of Morphy's popularity and presence.This… 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.

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