Secondhand chess books

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I recently picked up a couple of secondhand chess books and was wondering if anyone here had copies?

i) The Chess Players Compendium: A Practical Guide to the Openings. 1910.

http://www.biblio.com/book/chess-player ... /328089113

I was intrigued to see that this book, using descriptive notation, had arrays of possible opening analysis trees and move options, arranged in a grid that I'm more used to seeing in ECO and MCO, and in those cases it would be in algebraic. The openings are a tad obscure as well. This is the fifth edition, published in 1910, so I'm wondering how quickly it dated and what followed it. It would be interesting to see a first edition of this work. The authors are William Cook and Alfred Emery. It seems the first edition was in 1874, and it is mentioned in Tim Harding's book Eminent Victorian Chess Players: Ten Biographies.

ii) Instructive Positions from Master Chess. 1938.

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/I ... gMAAAAYAAJ

This small book is by Jacques Mieses, German-born British chess player and one of the original FIDE Grandmasters. It looks interesting, though not very long. It is in algebraic, and in better condition that the 1910 book above.

[Tim Harding]

I recently picked up a couple of secondhand chess books and was wondering if anyone here had copies?

i) The Chess Players Compendium: A Practical Guide to the Openings. 1910.

http://www.biblio.com/book/chess-player ... /328089113

I was intrigued to see that this book, using descriptive notation, had arrays of possible opening analysis trees and move options, arranged in a grid that I'm more used to seeing in ECO and MCO, and in those cases it would be in algebraic. The openings are a tad obscure as well. This is the fifth edition, published in 1910, so I'm wondering how quickly it dated and what followed it. It would be interesting to see a first edition of this work. The authors are William Cook and Alfred Emery. It seems the first edition was in 1874, and it is mentioned in Tim Harding's book Eminent Victorian Chess Players: Ten Biographies.
....

The original title of Cook's book was Synopsis of the Chess Openings and that was still the title of the fourth edition (1888) of which I have a copy.
Betts's bibliography says 1st ed 1874, 2nd 1876, 3rd ed 1882 and 1884, supplement 1882.
The title was changed in 1902 (see Betts 13-54 on page 187] and Emery seems to have become involved then.

Cook (1850-1917) was a Bristol man but associated with the Birmingham chess club for some years.

There was a similar book by Freeborough and Ranken in the 19th century. The tabular arrangement seems to have originated with the German Handbuch.
I expect some book collectors can help you with this topic.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks, Tim. Much appreciated.