Author: Aaron (Albert) Alexandre (1765?-1850)
Year: 1837
Publisher: d'Urtubie & Worms, Causette, Café de la Régence and Thomas Hurt
Place: Paris and London
Description:
[viii]+[104] pages with 52 tables of chess openings. Oblong folio (12 ¾" x 18 ¾") bound in original publisher's wrappers with elaborately engraved front wrapper. Preliminary text in French, English, German and Italian, with list of subscribers. (Van der Linde, Geschichte und Literatur des Schachspiels, II, p. 11; Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana 1790; Hoefer I, 934) First edition.
Aaron Alexandre was a Jewish German–French–English chess player and writer. He trained as a rabbi. He arrived in France in 1793 and taught German and was a mechanical inventor. He later became a full-time chess player. He wrote a book of all the known chess openings, the Encyclopédie des échecs (Encyclopedia of Chess), Paris, 1837. In the book, he used the algebraic notation and the castling symbols 0–0 and 0–0–0.
His next book was about the endgame and a collection of about 2000 chess problems, which he published in 1846 as Collection des plus beaux Problèmes d'Echecs, Paris. English and German translations: Beauties of Chess, London, and Praktische Sammlung bester Schachspiel-Probleme, Leipzig.
Both books became standard reference books, demonstrating Alexandre's great technical knowledge. Alexandre was also one of the chess players who worked inside the chess playing machine, the Turk.
Condition:
Spine perished, wrappers worn and soiled, wrappers and a few text leaves a bit loose, some gutters starting, some occasional soiling, foxing in text. A good copy of this fragile book in the rare original wrappers.