Author: Sergeant, Philip Walsingham (1871-1952)
Year: 1919
Publisher: George Bell & Sons
Place: London
Description:
xi+220+[2 ad] pages with frontispiece, diagrams and indices. Small octavo (7 1/4" x 5") bound in original publisher's brown cloth with gilt lettering to spine. (Betts: 29-30) First edition.
Contains all known games played by Charousek, 146 including consultation games, annotated from various sources. Rudolf Charousek was a Czech born Hungarian chess player. One of the top ten players in the world during the 1890s, he had a short career, dying at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. Reuben Fine wrote of him "Playing over his early games is like reading Keats's poetry: you cannot help feeling a grievous, oppressive sense of loss, of promise unfulfilled". He learned to play chess in his early teenage years, and his international debut came at the Nuremberg Tournament of 1896. Although he failed to win a prize, he defeated World Champion Emanuel Lasker in their individual encounter. Later that year he tied Mikhail Chigorin for first place at Budapest, and then took clear first place in the Berlin tournament of 1897. After these and other successes, Lasker remarked, "I shall have to play a championship match with this man someday." This did not happen, however, due to Charousek's death.
Condition:
Page one gutter taped, name stamped at back paste down, spine ends rubbed, back hinge rubbed, gilt dulled, edge wear else good to very good.
SOLD 2020