English Chess Forum

I was round at Richard James's yesterday evening (thank you, Richard) and at one point the conversation turned to books that have not yet been written. I suggested that I would love to see proper biographies of William Winter, Sir George Thomas and Jonathan Penrose (and the Penrose family in general), as they all had a large and positive impact on British chess and also its image abroad. Richard suggested that he would like to see a properly researched book on Blackburne.

Is anyone out there up for the challenge?

Or do other people have other, as yet unwritten, biographies?

I would like to see biographies of Penrose (both Jonathan and Roger would be of interest to myself) plus Julian Hodgson and Mike Basman.

I wonder if IGMRDKOBE would be interested along with Julian Simpole

Thought you might like to know that Oliver Penrose continues to play competitive chess in Edinburgh, today winning the Lothians Championship.

An extremely interesting biography would be David Norwood's. He has given £120 million to British Universities. Quite a remarkable achievement, which one might think was worthy of a gong?

James Pratt told me in 2007 that he was working on a biography on Basman, but I don't know whether he is ready to publish anything yet.

Unfortunately the Basman biography, for which I got MJB's permission, had to be abandoned for personal reasons. I also tried to assemble stuff about Penrose but here my problem was technical, he was just so strong, his life so dull! I will willing sell my Penrose findings to anybody interested.

James Pratt wrote:I will willing sell my Penrose findings to anybody interested.

You are joking, aren't you? No one can make money writing a proper chess biography. Its a labour of love. Why would anyone pay for second hand material?

P.

I'd like to see a biography of Nigel Short written by Tony Miles.

Paul McKeown wrote:

James Pratt wrote:I will willing sell my Penrose findings to anybody interested.

You are joking, aren't you? No one can make money writing a proper chess biography. It's a labour of love. Why would anyone pay for second hand material?

P.

Ouch! Perhaps there is some value in James's source materials, if he has any.

I have some terrific stuff on Penrose with any amount of cross referencing and detailed knowledge, I was offered a contract and a GM to work with but declined. Penrose is a very shy man and probably hated the idea of a biography. I respected his privacy but, as I say, did not proceed for other reasons. My notes took about two years to assemble. To the right potential author, of course they'd have value. I think we may be at cross purposes here, Paul McK. Never mind!

James Pratt (Basingstoke!)