Best Game Collection books with an eye on history

I recently am thumbing thru My Great Predecessors and was looking for other books such as this one. I also have The Greatest 125 games in chess but looking for some more. Thanks to all.

Lots of them.  There are tons of classic tournament books and biographies and if you can read descriptive notation, the Dover books by Alekhine, Tartakower, etc. are excellent.  Many of the early ones are out of print but can be found used online and are mostly cheap.

The biographies and collections put out by McFarland and Caissa Press are expensive but worth it.  Especially the books on Capablanca, Burn, Boleslavsky, Chigorin, etc.  Famous autobiographical games collections by Fischer, Tal, Botvinnik, Shirov, Speelman, Seirawan are also great.

Tarrasch's 300 Chess Games is a terrific collection of games from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Zurich 1953/Bronstein is often listed as the favorite tournament book of many amateurs and pros.  Others include Nottingham 1936, New York 1924, and the Second Piatigorsky Cup.

The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games is the all time bargain book.

I also recommend Benko's My Life, Games, and Chess Compositions. 

These should get you started.

Now available for Kindle. (Still no playable ebook version though... )

I'm looking more for books that focus from the beginning to modern times so I think the two that stick out are the ones I already have but I didn't know if there were others that were written as well as these two.

The Mammoth book is good for that.  But probably even better might be the Guinness Book of Chess Grandmasters by Hartston.  It doesn't quite reach past the 90s but it covers the full history of chess with lots of illustrative games and nice photos.

Some more "historical" games collections:

"500 Master Games of Chess" by Tartakower and Dumont

"Chess Highlights of the 20th Century" by Graham Burgess

"The 100 Best Chess Games of the 20th Century Ranked" by Andrew Soltis

As for chess history (not games collections):

"Chess An Illustrated History" by Raymond Keene

"The Kings of Chess" by Willam Hartston

"Chess A History" by Harry Golombek

And the mother of all chess histories:

"A History of Chess" by H.J.R Murray (original 1913 Edition)

There are several books relating to Chess Olympiads listed here.  Beyond these, I am not aware of other books devoted to chess olympiads

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=chess+olympiad&sprefix=chess+olym%2Cdigital-text%2C228

You might also want to peruse this site for some olympiad games (no books)...there is an email contact provided in the second link...

http://www.chess-olympiad.com/

http://chess-results.com/

contact@chess-results.com

Finally, I ran across this blog post in while searching the term "olympiad"

http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/a-remarkable-publisher-and-other-topics?searched=olympiad&advsearch=oneword&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1

There is a website link and email address to contact a person named "Fiala" who is apparently the founder and historian mentioned in the blog...

the blog post...

IV Quarterly for Chess History

I’ve left what is probably the best for last. Fiala’s current masterwork is the ongoing magazine/research periodical/book: ‘Quarterly for Chess History’. This true labour of love features articles by leading English-speaking chess historians such as Kenneth Whyld, K Landsberger, John Hilbert, and Fiala himself. There have only been 3 issues, the latest one dated Autumn 1999, but put out fairly recently, as Fiala’s personal note in the introduction carries the date October 14, 2000. This is a massive 514-page review of a large number of subjects from chess history. Fiala has wonderful articles on ‘Steinitz in Russia’ (106 pages!), ‘The Olympiad Hague’ (57 pages), and short biographies of Duz-Khotimirsky (12 pages, half games), Vidmar (14 pages, half games), and Sant-Amant (20 pages, mostly prose). He also writes a 104-page article on Steinitz-Lasker 1894, with 42 pages of introductory prose and then the annotated games! Landsberger writes ‘Steinitz Revisited’, Hilbert contributes ‘Chess In Philadelphia II’, and Whyld presents some newly-discovered games by Emanuel Lasker. There are also Fiala columns on chess research and miscellany, book reviews, and the like. Thus most of this issue is done by Fiala, who is fortunately fluent and very readable in English. I am not into chess history (apart from games, theory, and changes in play), but I find much of this material fascinating.

In conclusion, most of the books listed above are probably of interest mainly to fans of chess history, with the exception of things like the Alekhine and Botvinnik collections. But I think that ‘Quarterly for Chess History’ would also interest any chessplayer, and should also be in libraries everywhere. It is in my opinion an extremely well-priced specialty product at $29 + $4 postage per issue. As of the third issue, Fiala speaks of having only 37 subscribers via his website (http://www.moravian-chess.cz), and points out that despite being on sale in chess book dealers around the world, ‘our own circle of subscribers is needed’. As a subscriber, you get 20% off on the price of a book ordered from Moravian chess. The publisher’s email is fialav@risc.upol.cz.

TY RUSSBELL for bringing to light these great historic works. I did purchase Pawns in a Greater Game and the book is fantatsic. 

Why doesn't Fiala have an agent in the USA for distribution?  I noticed NIC carries his books in Europe. I would buy his Quarterly historic books in a heartbeat.In fact I didn't even know these works esisted before reading your post.  Also Chess UK carries their last couple of works.  

Can't help thinking if he had a chess reseller in the USA carry his books that he would sell a number of each book right away. It's just a nature of the beast that USA residents would rather order them off of a supplier that they can receive them in a 2-4 days then 2-4 weeks after paying. 

I know in my chess library I have at least one or two chess books that were published from the Moravian Press so someone in the USA must have imported them at one time.

Maybe Chess4Less.COM would carry them since they are affiliated with Chess & Bridge UK and even get NIC/Everyman/Quality titles 2 months before everyone else does. 

Tried to order the first two Volumes and put them in the basket, went to check out and it said I have nothing in the basket. Did this 3 times then gave up.  This is a problem dealing with the time difference and credit cards and not knowing what the shipping or the final bill will be.  This is exactly why he should have a reseller in the USA as he does in Europe. 

I have to add "upon further review"  that you can order about 4 different volumes on Amazon for $40+$3.99 shipping. Estimated delivery is about a month, not bad.  Seems many of the other volumes on Amazon say not avalable which puzzles me since he sends them out himself and they show in stock at his web site. I think I will order one copy of the chess hsotory quarterly and if I like it order more directly from him if I can figure it out.

While searching Amazon.com for "Moravian Chess" I came across this book published by Moravian Chess Publishing.  I thought it might be something that you would want to be aware of....

http://www.amazon.com/Competitions-Annotated-International-Bibliography-Bulletins/dp/8071896403/ref=sr_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449379091&sr=1-21&keywords=moravian+chess

There are lots of books published by Moravian Chess Pub listed on Amazon.  They can be identified visually as they all have plain, relatively non-descript covers.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_2?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Amoravian+chess&page=2&keywords=moravian+chess&ie=UTF8&qid=1449379085

Euwe - The Development of Chess Style

Konig - Chess From Morphy to Botvinnik

Hansen - Improve Your Chess By Learning from the Masters

All I can think is why no one wholesales the Moravian books in the USA. What a collection of books and authors as well. 

Thank you everyone for your posts, this has been very educating. Currently I've decided to go thru My Great Predecessors but I will also be eyeing many of the books mentioned here. I've decided to study and research them as well so hopefully one day I can publish my own.