Phillips Auction January 1988 - The Chess Library of J.E. Phillips Auction October 1985 - The Chess Library of R.J.
Yet this book regularly appears in book dealers catalogues and at auction sales.Ĭopies have been sold at the following auctions in recent years: Obviously some copies of this book have passed from collector to collector, and from dispersed collections into institutional libraries, but the known location of so many copies implies that very few examples should come on to the open market. The 11 copies in USA libraries together with further copies in private hands, such as David DeLucia, (see A Few Old Friends 1st edition page 62, 2nd edition page 92), and Jon Crumiller who has three copies! (see his website ) indicates that more than a third of the original printing, and an even larger share of what survives of a book originally intended for private circulation in England, has ended up in America this seems incredible. Even this list is not exhaustive, for example another copy is listed (twice) in Kieler Schachkatalog, the catalogue of the Wilhelm Massmann and Gerd Meyer collection in the Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landesbibliothek in Kiel.
11 of these are in USA, 9 in UK and 6 in the Netherlands. in university, institutional and public libraries. WorldCat, the online union catalogue which itemizes the collections of nearly 18,000 libraries worldwide, locates 29 copies of An Inquiry into the Antient Greek Game. Souweine had a copy item 152 in his 1938 catalogue. Other private collections not mentioned in Schaakbibliotheken also held copies, for example A.J. This claim was dropped for the 1858 edition of Lowndes as my copy does not mention the limited print run of Christie's book, but states that it is "held in much esteem by the learned", and gives the prices of four copies sold at auction.
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It seems that the limitation of 40 copies was first stated in The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature by William Lowndes, London 1834 which I have not seen. Booksellers, auctioneers and reference books have frequently stated that only 40 copies were printed, often citing early bibliographical works by Lowndes, Walker, Watt and Schmid for this information. So the subject matter is as obsolete as the title, and the chief attraction of this book for collectors is its claimed rarity, which brings me to the main purpose of this article to examine the claim that only 40 copies were printed. did expect his opinions to be controversial, but hoped that his book would encourage further investigations into the history of chess. In fairness, the author of An Inquiry into the Antient Greek Game. In a long letter published in The Chess Player, by Kling and Horwitz, volume IV, Christie's book and ideas are discussed at length on pages 36 to 40, but again with much scepticism, the letter is signed B.S.* The book is also referred to on pages 12 to 18 of Amusements in Chess by Charles Tomlinson, London 1845.Īntonius van der Linde mentions this work only in the Schachmythologie chapter of Geschichte und Literatur des Schachspiels, Berlin 1874 (Erste Band page 12). Dyer is briefly mentioned in The British Chess Magazine for October 1940 on page 355 together with a portrait.ĭuncan Forbes referred to Christie's conjectures in The History of Chess, London 1860 but declared "all this is sheer imagination" and that Christie's book was "more fanciful than sound". In-Service Education for Community Center Leadership Prepared for the National Recreation Association, New York 1955.ĭonald B. Liability in Public Recreation, Appleton, Wisconsin 1949 Dyer was a director of the United States Chess Federation and, at various times, supervisor of chess, department of municipal recreation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and assistant superintendent of schools, in charge of recreations and adult education in Milwaukee.ĭyer's career was in education and recreation and he authored two other (recorded) books: It is not in any bibliography, and I have searched for this book in hundreds of book dealer's and auction catalogues without success.ĭonald B. The book is not recorded in WorldCat, the online catalogue collating the holdings of nearly 18,000 libraries worldwide, so the book is not in the major chess collections in the Cleveland Public Library or in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague. Despite extensive research I cannot find a single reference to this book anywhere absolutely nothing.