The Book Collection Updated

The Mosher Book Collection:

The Blessed Damozel, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 1901.
I'm lucky to have this at all. The mailing envelope was practically destroyed in transit through the postal system, crushed, crumpled and torn. Miraculously, the book itself survived intact!

And a good thing, too. This is the 1901 first edition of Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel, one of 450 copies on handmade Kelmscott paper, 15x13 cm, Miscellaneous Series, in blue paper covered boards, photogravure of Rossetti's portrait of Alexa Wilder as The Blessed Damozel tipped in. While the 1901 and 1902 editions are physically similar, the difference lies in the limited number special editions that were done in 1901.

The Chess Book Collection:

My mono-mania du jour is chess, followed closely by Diana camera photography. Whenever possible, I like to combine my mono-manias with my book collecting, creating a nifty sub-category: in this case vintage chess books. This started out in a random, scattershot manner until I began to perceive a pattern within the collection of vintage chess books. Some are worth a fortune! Collecting vintage chess books has the added appeal of being both practical and visually appealing: I've learned a lot from these antique manuals, in some cases, more than I have from contemporary chess manuals.

The Chess-Player's Companion, by Howard Staunton, published by George Bell & Sons, 1887.
A nice 8vo, in red cloth covered boards with a chess board and pieces stamped on the cover in gold. The frontispiece has a chess puzzle: The Enigma ~ White having to play, is to checkmate black in seven moves, or compel black to checkmate him in the same number of moves. This is the sort of puzzle that was popular in the Romantic era of chess-playing, the sort of thing you'd while away a few hours over a cheroot and a bottle of port. The Chess-Player's Companion is a treatise on playing odds: one side removing certain pieces from the board at the start of the game, thus playing at a tactical disadvantage. The second part of the book concerns openings of the day with a list of variations. Staunton was an important chess player of the middle XIXth Century, a contemporary of Morhpy, Steinitz and Anderssen, Staunton also standardized the appearance of the chess pieces. One could spend forever going over these variations and puzzles.

Chess, by G.H.D. Gossip, published by Fitzgerald Publishing, 1889.
The names of chess players, like the openings and gambits, have a certain Romantic cache to them. Aron Nimzovich, Paul Morphy, Jose raul Capablanca, St. Amant, Judit Polgar, Alexander Alekhine. They sound like characters out of spy novel from the early XXth Century. G.H.D. Gossip, though, is one of my favourites ... there's just something wonderful about his name. Mr. Gossip's book is a typical chess manual aimed at familiarizing the player with the pieces and their capabilities and then moving onto a series of openings, middle and end game tactics, the emphasis being controlling the centre of the board.

Principles of Chess, by James Mason, published by David McKay, Philadelphia, circa 1897.
Another comprehensive chess manual aimed at giving a beginning player all the information they would need concerning the basic rules of the game, tactics and strategies, planning, attacking, defense, the art of combinations and some opening moves. Very informative but Mason's style is highly opaque and rather tedious.

Chess Openings, by James Mason, published by Horace Cox, London, 1897.
James Mason examines a variety of opening moves and their variations. In Mason's day it was considered unsporting to decline a gambit and one had to "know one's openings" and memorize a number of openings and their variations and sub-variations. It would be extremely tedious, but that's what people did. I'm not convinced people play a variety of openings other than either P-K4 or P-Q4 ... at least at the amateur level. The names of the openings ... another thing I like about chess. Laden with a mystical cache which conjure up exciting and mysterious imagery: the Evans Gambit, the Petroff Defense, the King's Bishop's Game ... remarkable! Very informative, but Mason's tedious style blunts the edge somewhat.

The Minor Tactics of Chess, by Franklin K. Young and Edwin C. Howell, published by Little, Brown and Co. 1915.
You purchase a chess set, buy an introductory book, play a few games and get soundly beaten. This leads you to buy more instructional books on chess: the opening moves and their obscure variations, middle and endgame strategy, self-tests, how to correct the mistakes you've made ... eventually you have a shelf full of books and you may be no better off than you were when you started ... perhaps even more confused. You begin a quest for the one book which solve all your problems and you'll end up with even more books. I was lucky and fortuitously acquired The Minor Tactics of Chess by Young and Howell ... what I learned fromt his book has been invaluable. Rather than a book of openings and variations which one is expected to learn by rote (and which one might never see short of tournament level), Young and Howell explicate a system for both White and Black which develops pawn chains, moves out the knights and bishops and which creates a formidable attack/defense structure. A key point of their system: every chess piece has its force of influence and correctly utilizing this force of influence will hinder and crush your adversary. They're talking about positional chess, long before positional chess was being played.

Chess Openings: The Centre Counter, by J. du Mont, George Bell & Sons, 1919.
Mr. Du Mont translated Edward Lasker's Chess Strategy as well as writing a series (I presume) of instructional chess books, this volume being the first. Following the ideas of the late XIXth Century chess master, Steinitz, Mr. Du Mont instructs the chess tyro to "hold the centre at all costs." This here-to-fore unshakeable caveat of the chessboard was being challenged by the Latvian Aron Nimzovich whose Hypermodern style influenced the centre from the flanks! Mr. Du Mont illustrates his lessons with games from the previous century played by Steinitz and Morphy, Anderssen, Capablanca and Lasker and produces a highly readable and informative book.