McFarland Chess books ...

Does anyone here collect these GREAT works? I have around ten on different players. The one on Schlechter is MASSIVE and very interesting. Sad his demise. Just  Curious 

Hi Ron,

If you read my profile you needn't have asked (ha ha).  Let's see, I have in no particular order:

• Chess World Championships: All the Games, 1834-1984
• William Steinitz, Chess Champion: A Biography of the Bohemian Caesar
• The Zurich Chess Club, 1809-2009
• The Tragic Life and Short Chess Career of James A. Leonard, 1841-1862
• Correspondence Chess in America
• Aron Nimzowitsch: On the Road to Chess Mastery, 1886-1924
• Chess Facts And Fables
• The Classical Era of Modern Chess
• De La Bourdonnais Versus Mcdonnell, 1834: The Eighty-five Games of Their Six Chess Matches
• Soviet Chess 1917-1991
• Chess Personalia: A Biobibliography
• Emil Kemeny: A Life in Chess
• Frank Marshall, United States Chess Champion: A Biography with 220 Games
• Blindfold Chess: History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records, and Important Games
• Amos Burn: A Chess Biography
• United States Chess Championship, 1845-1996
• Julius Finn: A Chess Master's Life in America, 1871-1931
• Walter Penn Shipley, Philadelphia's Friend of Chess
• Eminent Victorian Chess Players: Ten Biographies
• Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography
• Reuben Fine: A Comprehensive Record of an American Chess Career, 1929-1951
• Isaac Kashdan, American Chess Grandmaster: A Career Summary with 757 Games
• Thomas Frere and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City
• Correspondence Chess in Britain and Ireland, 1824-1987
• Two-Move Chess Problems

I also have quite a few of the library bound Caissa Editions books, also listed here in no particular order:

• Moscow International Chess Tournament, 1935
• St. Petersburg, 1895-96
• St. Petersburg 1914
• Carl Schlechter!: Life & Times of the Austrian Chess Wizard
• Napier: The forgotten chessmaster
• The New York State Chess Association congresses: Buffalo 1894 and 1901
• The United States chess championship: New York 1940
• Nuremberg 1896 International Chess Tournament
• Baden Baden 1925
• Vladimirs Petrovs A Chessplayer's Story From Greatness To The Gulags
• Essays in American chess history
• Karlsbad 1907
• Paul Morphy
• Pasadena 1932
• AVRO 1938
• Nezhmetdinov's Best Games of Chess
• Chicago 1926 and Lake Hopatcong 1926
• San Remo 1930 International Chess Tournament

There may be more, but that's all I remember for now.

Most of the books from both publishers are library bound, but not all. For example, Nezhmetdinov's Best Games of Chess is a paperback as is my copy of William Steinitz, Chess Champion, though the original McFarland was hardcover.  Some were never released as hardcovers, one being Tim Harding's Eminent Victorian Chess Players: Ten Biographies.

By the way, the book to which you refer is a Caissa Edition and not McFarland Press.

Best regards,
Bob

P.S. Removed Bled 1931 on February 7, 2016.  I don't have this tournament book, not sure why I thought I did.

Wow Bob! That's quite a library . I have the one on Botvinnik coming myself. I recommend the Schlechter book by Goldman. Yes now I see Caissa. It looks to have similar binding to the McFarland books. Some excellent historical reading in that one. Cheers -Ron

Hi Ron,

The one on Botvinnik by Andy Soltis received good reviews.  I may have to add it to my library (Oh, no, not another book )

Yes, the book by Goldman is the one I have.  There was another published four years later titled Schlechter's Chess Games by Tom Crain, but it's just a game collection.

By the way, you can't go wrong with anything written by Tim Harding.  His books are always scholarly and historically accurate.  His latest book is Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography.

Hi Bob,

if you had to scale down your library of beatiful and expensive McFarland and Caissa Editions books, which 5 volumes would you keep and why?

thanks :)

jarrasch

Hello Jarrasch:

That's a tough question.  How about books I'd take to a desert island?

I prefer books that reveal the interesting history of chess in the United States (and sometimes the United Kingdom) rather than tournament books or mere game collections.  This means most Caissa Editions and the McFarland tome on Reuben Fine's games would not make the cut.  Still, that leaves a lot to choose from.

After considerable thought, I would take the following with me.  In no particular order are:

• Thomas Frere and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City
• Walter Penn Shipley, Philadelphia's Friend of Chess
• Essays in American chess history
• Correspondence Chess in America
• Eminent Victorian Chess Players: Ten Biographies (no hardcover published)

If you permit me to add two more to my steamer trunk for a Lucky 7, I'd go outside the U.S and U.K. to add one biography and one more history.

• Aron Nimzowitsch: On the Road to Chess Mastery, 1886-1924
• Soviet Chess 1917-1991

Unfortunately, most of the links are to editions republished as paperbacks, but you can read a summary of each book.  The hardcovers are out of print, and used copies are often prohibitively expensive.

Best regards,
Bob