Chess literature

Chess literature: Title page of Deutsche Schachblätter , Issue 4 of August 15, 1909

In the chess literature is literature for chess . For example, you can find chess literature on the following topics:

• Chess textbooks - introductions for beginners and advanced players
• Chess openings - general considerations or presentation of special openings / opening variants
• Treatment of the middlegame
• Finals
• Tournament books - report on individual chess tournaments or chess competitions (e.g. world championships )
• Biographies - life descriptions of well-known chess masters ( monograph )
• History of chess
• Chess composition
• Chess studies
• Chess tactics
• Others
  • Computer chess
  • Chess and math
  • psychology
  • Oddities

The many works of fiction that have chess as their theme are counted only marginally to chess literature , for example by Wilhelm Heinse (Anastasia and the game of chess), Stefan Zweig ( chess novella ), Vladimir Nabokov (Lushin's defense), Gustav Meyrink ( The Golem ), Samuel Beckett ( Murphy ) and Elias Canetti ( The Glare ).

Historical development

Probably more has been written about chess than any other game . The Dutch chess collector Jurgen Stierter estimates the number of publications at over 500,000. The first important books on chess come from Jacobus de Cessolis , Luis Ramírez Lucena (1497), Damiano da Odemira (1512) and Ruy López de Segura (1561). The first German-language chess book was published in 1507 . Later influential works come from François-André Danican Philidor ( Analyze du jeu des echecs , 1749), Giambattista Lolli ( Osservazioni teorico-pratiche sopra il giuoco degli scacchi , 1763), Paul Rudolph von Bilguer ( Handbook of the Chess Game , 1843) and Howard Staunton ( Chess player's handbook , 1847). Most of the world chess champions also made significant contributions to the chess literature. For example, the collection of games written by Bobby Fischer , My sixty memorable games (1969, German: My 60 memorable games ) is still a classic today. The book Bobby Fischer teaches chess , published in 1966, sold more than 1 million copies, making it the best-selling chess book of all time.

The first chess magazine was Le Palamède ( 1836 - 1847 ). Before that there were already chess columns in daily newspapers, first in 1813 in the Liverpool Mercury .

Collections

The most important chess library of the 19th century was owned by Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand and the Lasa . The most important contemporary private collection was that of the German Grand Master Lothar Schmid, who died in 2013, with around 50,000 volumes. The most valuable chess collection is now that of the American David DeLucia. The largest chess collection in a public library worldwide is the John G. White Collection in Cleveland ; in Germany it is the Schleswig-Holstein State Library . The Royal Library of the Netherlands has the largest collection of chess literature in Europe, comprising around 40,000 volumes.

Many private collectors of chess literature are active in the international association Chess Collectors International (CCI for short).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ De levensroeping van Jurgen Stigter: een complete bibliography van schaakboeken , Max Euwe Centrum, 18. August 2010
2. ^ Edward Winter: Chess Records
3. ↑ Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam : "The Finest Chess Collection in the World". In: New in Chess , 2010, No. 5, p. 10 ff.

literature

• Bibliotheca van der Linde-Niemeijeriana. A catalog of the chess collection in the Royal Library, The Hague . The Hague 1955.
• The Frankfurt chess book catalog. Chess scripts in the City and University Library Frankfurt am Main . 2nd Edition. Helten, Rodgau 1982. ISBN 3-922853-03-X .
• Meindest Niemeijer : Schaak Libraries ( Memento from September 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Wassenaar 1948.

Web links

• Harald E. Balló: Selected Chess Literature (extensive bibliography)
• Anton Schmid: (chaturangavidjâ.) Literature of the game of chess. Vienna 1847 Annotated bibliography of the oldest chess literature