English Chess Forum

I was wondering if anyone has knowledge of the Hardinge-Simpole books ...

Reuben Fine's Best Games (by Fine), and
Mikhail Tal: The shooting star of chess (by Golombek)

Both with the familiar white covers.

In particular, are these old books that have been repackaged and/or retitled? I presume so, as this would normally be the publisher's practice, but a quick search revealed nothing concrete. It is also possible that the Golombek work is cobbled together from old BCM articles and the like - something they did with his Botvinnik-Smyslov 1957/58 book.

Any information gratefully received.

Colin Patterson wrote: Reuben Fine's Best Games (by Fine), and
Mikhail Tal: The shooting star of chess (by Golombek)

The University of Hastings catalogued many of the book collections bequeathed to the ECF, amongst them Golombek's of course.

A link was posted on this forum
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 60#p196734

The complete list of works (duplicates removed) authored by Fine, held by the ECF in these collections is

Fine, Reuben Basic chess endings / by Reuben Fine
Fine, Reuben Bobby Fischer's conquest of the World's Chess Championship : the psychology
Fine, Reuben Chess marches on! : a vivid record of chess activities in the leading center
Fine, Reuben Fifty chess masterpieces 1941-1944 / by Reuben Fine
Fine, Reuben Lessons from my games : a passion for chess / by Reuben Fine
Fine, Reuben The ideas behind the chess openings / by Reuben Fine
Fine, Reuben The ideas behind the chess openings : algebraic edition / Reuben Fine
Fine, Reuben The middle game in chess / Reuben Fine
Fine, Reuben The psychology of the chess player / by Reuben Fine ; with a new appendix of
Fine, Reuben, 1914-1993 The psychology of the chess player : (formerly titled : psychoanalytic obser

The best games collection could be a retitled version of one of these.



The complete list of works (duplicates removed) authored by Golombek, held by the ECF in these collections is

1959 Candidates Tournament : Bled - Zagreb - Belgrade - September-October 19
A history of chess / Harry Golombek
Beginning chess / Harry Golombek
El juego de ajedrez / H. Golombek
Het schaakspel / H. Golombek
Improve your chess / Harry Golombek
Instructions to young chess players / by H. Golombek
Modern opening chess strategy / by H. Golombek
Prague 1946 - / by H. Golombek
Staunton Centenary Tournament 1951 / by H. Golombek. With additional annotat
The game of chess / by H. Golombek
The World Chess Championship 1948 / by H. Golombek
World Chess Championship 1954 / by H. Golombek ; with a foreword by M.M. Bot
World Chess Championship 1957 / by H. Golombek ; with a foreword by V. Smysl
XXII U.S.S.R. chess championship / by H. Golombek
Chess / by H. Golombek and Hubert Phillips

Nothing specific by Golombek about Tal or the World Championship matches of 1960 and 1961.

This link suggests it's been in the Harding-Simpole catalogue since 2004
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7724409-mikhail-tal

If you go to the horse's mouth
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk/biblio/184382079x.htm
you learn

The core of this book is composed of four remarkable eye-witness accounts by Harry Golombek. The 1958 Interzonal, the 1959 Candidates’ tournament and the World Championships of 1960 and 1961 were all attended by Golombek in his capacity as arbiter - he therefore profited from unrivalled and extensive inside access to the thoughts and comments of both Soviet and international experts.

That rather implies reprints of contemporary magazine articles.

This is what they say of the Reuben Fine book
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk/biblio/184382101x.htm
Perhaps that too was put together from magazine articles.

Roger de Coverly wrote: If you go to the horse's mouth
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk/biblio/184382079x.htm
you learn

The core of this book is composed of four remarkable eye-witness accounts by Harry Golombek. The 1958 Interzonal, the 1959 Candidates’ tournament and the World Championships of 1960 and 1961 were all attended by Golombek in his capacity as arbiter - he therefore profited from unrivalled and extensive inside access to the thoughts and comments of both Soviet and international experts.

That rather implies reprints of contemporary magazine articles.

This is what they say of the Reuben Fine book
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk/biblio/184382101x.htm
Perhaps that too was put together from magazine articles.

One would assume that the origin of the text is fully explained somewhere in the books, perhaps with the rest of the bibliographic information. This would be the normal practice.

Neither book displays any text on Google Books, though both display a blurb: this is the Tal.

I wonder who wrote:Morphy, Charousek, Pillsbury, Fischer... the history of chess is illuminated by shooting stars who burn briefly across the chess firmament, only to vanish without trace. The parabolic career of the Latvian genius Mikhail Tal conforms all too well to this astonishing pattern. As a virtually unknown student in 1957 Tal swept aside the revered phalanxes of Soviet Grandmasters and ultimately annihilated the Red Czar of Soviet chess himself - Mikhail Botvinnik - all within a mere three year period.

That does seem a very familar voice.

Roger

Thanks very much for your post. It confirms to me what a loss the ECF library might be.

(I am particularly interested in Fine's books on the psychology of chess players: my interest is in Tiger or Heffalump strategies before a move is made.

A Tiger strategy involves trying to maximise the probability of winning whereas a Heffalump strategy involves trying to maximise the probability of not losing. There are two sub-species of Heffalumps depending on whether the associated player's expected score is greater or less than 0.5.)

IanCalvert wrote:It confirms to me what a loss the ECF library might be.

I don't think it has anything to do with the physical existence of the library, it was just that the Hastings University had compiled a list of the books in the various collections. That is an incomplete proxy for a maintained list of all chess books ever published, which doesn't exist, or at least not directly.

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping that a forumite keen on chess biographies might own these books, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

I had skimmed through the Hardinge-Simpole blurb about the Tal book, but had somehow missed the vital part that Roger highlighted above. This 'reproduced BCM articles' approach worked quite well with their 'Botvinnik-Smyslov 57/58' book, so I'll gladly give this one a try too.

As for the Reuben Fine Best Games book, I noticed that Amazon's information makes a very brief reference to "Pal Benko, reviser". I suspect therefore, that this will be a re-hash of 'Lessons From My Games: A Passion For Chess', perhaps with some extra games added. The original is a book I already have, so I doubt I would risk buying a version that may have only limited new material.

Incidentally, one title not appearing in that Reuben Fine (ECF bequeathed) book list above, is 'The World's A Chessboard'; a companion volume to 'Chess Marches On' (Fine intended that they become the start of a series). Both books take a look at chess from different locations around the world, with many great games annotated along the way, and are thoroughly recommended for a blend of history, entertainment and learning.