English Chess Forum

I remember seeing a "Chess in Fiction " or "Chess in Novels" thread somewhere. Could someone kindly send me a link. I've tried to use the search function on this Forum but I'm obviously not doing it correctly.
Thanks.

Catherine Glynn wrote:I remember seeing a "Chess in Fiction " or "Chess in Novels" thread somewhere.

This one perhaps?

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... ion#p65398

Great, thank you Roger.

There is a book on this subject, by Kester Svendsen, published way back in 1951. Chess Fiction in England to 1945: A Bibliography. Oklahoma, USA, 1951 289-314pp.

www.playingtowinnovel.blogspot.com is a recent example Personally I like 'The Queen's Gambit' by Walter Tevis too. If you're interested I'll give you a half price copy.

Gordon Cadden wrote:There is a book on this subject, by Kester Svendsen, published way back in 1951. Chess Fiction in England to 1945: A Bibliography. Oklahoma, USA, 1951 289-314pp.

Thanks, I'll have to try and find a copy - I've not come across it before. I'm slightly amazed that such a bibliography exists. I just tried to look for it online and I think it's "Chess Books in English to 1945", language, not country-specific . Do you have a copy, Gordon? I'm curious to know how many books there are. 300pp is a reasonably thick book !

Nobody seems to have mentioned 'Alice through the looking glass' or more properly 'Through the looking glass and what Alice found there'
I very much enjoyed Martin Gardner's 'The annotated Alice' which includes a highly unlikely endgame.

Personally I like 'The Queen's Gambit' by Walter Tevis

Each to his own, but I thought it was rubbish.

How about 'Gambit' by Rex Stout?

Catherine Glynn wrote:

Gordon Cadden wrote:There is a book on this subject, by Kester Svendsen, published way back in 1951. Chess Fiction in England to 1945: A Bibliography. Oklahoma, USA, 1951 289-314pp.

Thanks, I'll have to try and find a copy - I've not come across it before. I'm slightly amazed that such a bibliography exists. I just tried to look for it online and I think it's "Chess Books in English to 1945", language, not country-specific . Do you have a copy, Gordon? I'm curious to know how many books there are. 300pp is a reasonably thick book !

Alas, very few Catherine. David de Lucia has a copy, he lives in New Jersey, USA. It is one of the great eccentric books, with a chess theme. It is astonishing that the book has 289-314 pp. He must have included every work of fiction, with a reference to the game of chess. He was a Professor of English Literature.
I do not know of any collector in the United Kingdom, who has a copy of this book.

Gordon Cadden wrote:

Catherine Glynn wrote:

Gordon Cadden wrote:There is a book on this subject, by Kester Svendsen, published way back in 1951. Chess Fiction in England to 1945: A Bibliography. Oklahoma, USA, 1951 289-314pp.

Thanks, I'll have to try and find a copy - I've not come across it before. I'm slightly amazed that such a bibliography exists. I just tried to look for it online and I think it's "Chess Books in English to 1945", language, not country-specific . Do you have a copy, Gordon? I'm curious to know how many books there are. 300pp is a reasonably thick book !

Alas, very few Catherine. David de Lucia has a copy, he lives in New Jersey, USA. It is one of the great eccentric books, with a chess theme. It is astonishing that the book has 289-314 pp. He must have included every work of fiction, with a reference to the game of chess. He was a Professor of English Literature.
I do not know of any collector in the United Kingdom, who has a copy of this book.

Thank you, Gordon. As soon as you said this, a light bulb went off above my head and I realized what an idiot I am.

I have a copy of Betts' Chess Bibliography sitting on my shelf !! Why the heck didn't I look in this to start with?
In it, I find:
a) an entry for Mr Svendler's "Chess Fiction in English to 1945". 553 titles were listed. So now I know.
b) a section "Chess in Fiction", with 165 entries, from Samuel Adams to Stefan Zweig. OK, it only goes up to 1968.

If Tony Peterson has seen this thread, he must be laughing at me!

A few additional books from my collection, that have not been listed on this thread;
Carl Haffners Love of the Draw by Thomas Glavinic
High Priest by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran
Rameau's Nephew by Denis Diderot
Three Stories and a Reflection by Patrick Suskind
Moral Victories by David Lovejoy
Sinister Gambits by Richard Peyton
Hence by Brad Leithauser

Have no doubt that there are many more books of fiction, or semi-fiction, with a chess theme.

Check out 'The Squares of the City' by John Brunner. The plot of this book is based on a game between Steinitz and Chigorin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Squares_of_the_City

I think the 'Queen's Gambit' has a few flaws, the heroine doesn't lose enough games for example. But in terms of writing style, it's by far the best fiction writing I've seen on chess. I might even check out some of Tevis's other books.

Mark Howitt wrote:I think the 'Queen's Gambit' has a few flaws, the heroine doesn't lose enough games for example. But in terms of writing style, it's by far the best fiction writing I've seen on chess. I might even check out some of Tevis's other books.

Couldn't agree more, one of my favourite books despite it's flaws - I think the problem was Tevis didn't know enough about tournament Chess, his other most famous book "The Hustler" showed an in depth technical knowledge of Pool, gained from Tevis' younger days working in a pool hall. In "The Queen's Gambit" there is a part where the main character Beth says she deliberately avoids the Endgame because she finds it dull - baring in mind she is supposed to be a Super GM - got on everyone’s nerves a little bit.

It’s definitely worth reading “The Hustler” in my opinion it’s a much better story than the famous film adaptation - in the film the story was changed in order to give the female leading lady more screen time, which I felt took attention away from the main thing - pool.

The sequel “The Colour of Money” is certainly better than the film - but basically that was a completely different story and just used Tevis' title

Watched a bit of the TV adaptation of Poirot “The Big Four” last night - some bloke billed as a Russian GM died at the board while playing 3.Bb4 in the Ruy Lopez, it turned out that the b4 square was electrified and the metal inside the Bishop acted as a conductor to kill him…. I turned the channel shortly after…

Before anyone gets the wrong idea from Jon it appears that in Poirot:
*The board and pieces were set up correctly
*The moves were announced almost correctly as 3 B-QN5 not 3. B-N5 and certainly not 3. B-N4 or Bb4
but Jon was right to change stations!