Chess Brilliancies II
Francis Percival Wenman
Percy Wenman (1892-1972), born in England. In 1911 he moved to Scotland where he began his amateur chess career, married Elizabeth Thompson, had a son, Marcus Heathcote and a daughter Alice Elizabeth and started his amateur chess career. He won the Scottish Chess Championship in 1920.
Besides his skill pushing pieces he was also an author/editor of many books mainly compilations of games and puzzles.
Unfortunately, his legacy has been marred by instances of plagiarism of chess compositions:
Hooper and Whyld in "Oxford Companion to Chess"
One Hundred and Seventy Five Chess Brilliancies, however, is a somewhat remarkable book.
The games are lightly annotated and little, if any, information is given about them.
I took the liberty of selecting a handful of these game in a series of three blogs for their entertainment value.
Today we can go to a digital database, search for a game and play through it all in a matter of minutes. In the pre-computer era games arrived in books, magazine and newspapers. One first had to set up a board, then painstakingly, hopefully error-free, play through each move by following the notation. It was a much more intimate and time-consuming process than what we are used to. People who prepared compilations had their own set of hurdles. Finding, comparing, judging and selecting games was an involved and tedious job but when completed, gave the student of the game something of great worth that was difficult to find elsewhere at the time. Therein lies the "remarkable."
