Author: Philippe Jules van Zuijlen van Nijevelt (1743-1826)
Year: 1792
Publisher: Chez J A de Chalmont
Place: Campen
Description:
166 pages Small octavo (7 1/2" x 4 3/4") bound in full leather with gilt decorations to spine and cover with red spine label lettered in gilt. (Linden - N. 559; van der Linde I, 417f) Second printing.
Van Zuylen van Nijevelt wrote a well-known treatise on the game of chess, La Supériorité aux Échecs (1792). The book's full title was La Supériorité aux Échecs mise à la portée de tout le monde, et particulierement des dames qui aiment cet amusement. It was reprinted several times and translated into several languages.
The Dutch chess theorist Philippe Jules van Zuylen van Nyevelt was a civil servant, general, and published "La supériorité aux échecs ..." (The Great Game of Chess...) in 1792. "The 'Volume de Planche' mentioned on the title page forms the second game, for no other exists." (van der Linde) For a detailed discussion of the distinction between the first and second printings, see van der Linde I, 417 f. This edition is valued for its instructive examples on the management of pawns in the endgame. He was the first Dutchman to write a book on chess, and probably also the first person to come up with the idea of random chess (also known as shuffle chess), a chess variant whereby the starting position of the main pieces is chosen at random. He wrote that he hated openings "with all those annoying, constantly repeating patterns" and therefore thought of randomizing the starting positions of the chess pieces. "This produces a huge number of different situations, so that no one can study them beforehand," according to Van Zuylen van Nijevelt
Condition:
The plates and errata page are missing. The interior is toned, occasionally stained with a few notes in an old hand. A few pages are marginal. Cover slightly bumped and scratched else about very good.