The Noble Game of Chess or, A New and Easy Method to learn to play well in a short Time: Together with a curious Account of its Antiquity, Derivation of its Terms
The Noble Game of Chess or, A New and Easy Method to learn to play well in a short Time: Together with a curious Account of its Antiquity, Derivation of its Terms
The Noble Game of Chess or, A New and Easy Method to learn to play well in a short Time: Together with a curious Account of its Antiquity, Derivation of its Terms
The Noble Game of Chess or, A New and Easy Method to learn to play well in a short Time: Together with a curious Account of its Antiquity, Derivation of its Terms
The Noble Game of Chess or, A New and Easy Method to learn to play well in a short Time: Together with a curious Account of its Antiquity, Derivation of its Terms
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The Noble Game of Chess or, A New and Easy Method to learn to play well in a short Time: Together with a curious Account of its Antiquity, Derivation of its Terms

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Author: Philipp Stamma (c1705-1755) from the library of James J Barrett and David DeLucia

Year: 1745

Publisher:  Printed for J. Brindley Bookseller to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in New Bond-Street

Place: London

Description:

2 parts in 1: xxiv+1-74; 1-115+[1 blank] pages with diagrams (one folding).  Very small quarto (5 ½" x 3 ¼") bound in original leather boards with makeshift spine hand lettered. From the library of James J Barrett and David DeLucia (Whyld and Ravilious page 36) First English edition.

,Philip Stamma, a native of Aleppo, Ottoman Syria, later resident of England and France, was a chess master and a pioneer of modern chess. His reputation rests largely on his authorship of the early chess book Essai sur le jeu des echecs published 1737 in France (English translation: The Noble Game Of Chess 1745). This book brought the Middle Eastern concept of the endgame to the attention of Europe and helped revive European interest in the study of the endgame. Stamma was a regular at Slaughter's Coffee House in St. Martin's Lane (London), a center of 18th century English chess, and was considered one of England's strongest players. He was defeated quite handily by Philidor in a famous match in 1747, which marked the beginning of Philidor's rise to fame.

James J. Barrett wrote a few chess columns in the Buffalo area. In a chess magazine being on page 1 of the March 1948 Chess Review: he wrote a letter of complaint about the magazine's choice of front-cover photographs. He played a substantial role in Paul Morphy The Pride and Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson (New York, 1976), and in the Acknowledgments (page vii) Lawson wrote, "I wish particularly to express gratitude for the suggestions and generous help of James J. Barrett, with special reference to the selection, preparation, and proofreading of the games."

David DeLucia's chess library contains 7,000 to 8,000 chess books, a similar number of autographs (letters, score sheets, manuscripts), and about 1,000 items of "ephemera". DeLucia's library contains such items as "a 15th-century Lucena manuscript, score-sheets ranging from Fischer's Game of the Century against Donald Byrne to all the games of the 1927 New York tournament, eight letters by Morphy, over a hundred Lasker manuscripts, Capablanca's gold pocket watch, [and] the contract of the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort world championship match".

Condition: James J Barrett and David DeLucia's book plates to front paste down and front end paper respectively. Front endpaper detached. Front hinge detached. Neat old signature to title, back end papers with ink notation and pencil marginalia to text. Taped spine, corners bumped and rubbed through, edge wear else a poor copy of a scare chess item.

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