Which books Morphy did study?

I was wondering about the chess books available in the time and place of Morphy.

In our times we have computers, internet, a lot more of books, but not  anyone can develop an eagle vision in the board like Morphy did.

You know, I like your question.  I don't know the answer to the question, but

  I wonder about another thing.  What chess books did Kasparov and Ficsher study?

      All of these people are top in the world.

I think that Fischer knowed (and Kasparov now) all chess theory of his time.

 Both with an exceptional tactical play, and endgame perfectioned, just need to develop new openings and strategy ideas in his own "laboratories".

So they develop new theory...

Very probably that Morphy was  in a similar way, but i still was wondering which chess books were posessed by him.

Perhaps The Chess Player's Handbook by Howard Staunton... it was big back then. It has a short section on the rules and strategy such as how to develop your pieces--and then it delves into a survey of all the common openings along with instructive annotated games to demonstrate their ins and outs, many involving wild tactics.

I also remember two comments on the Anderssen-Morphy match: (1) One source reported that Morphy had memorized several of Anderssen's games, and (2) Staunton noted that Morphy seemed more up-to-date on his opening theory. This implies that Morphy read one or more chess magazines, probably the Chess Player's Chronicle.

These are educated guesses. Batgirl is the expert on Morphy; hopefully she'll chime in.  :)

Singa> I have an old copy in my  library's archives at home.

An original copy? That's impressive!

Singa> There is nothing much in it really for anyone to benefit  from studying it.

Its pages are filled with annotated games from the romantic era of chess, which are both exciting and tactically instructive. I found interesting -- from a historical perspective -- his explanations of strategy, opening theory, and his opinions about the players of his times. I agree there are more practical (accessible, accurate, detailed) options for the modern chess aficionado to choose to learn from if history doesn't interest them.

 Yes,i have noticed this a time ago at members-country list here at chess.com and suprised me.I didn't expect Malaysia,Phillipines and Indonesia to have so many members..Well done,keep on!So you say it's because of the training from Russians?Where are they now???Also i dissapointed from many European countries(no need to mention names,but it's obvious i suppose)...

I wish someone was sure because it would be super cool to know how the greats of the game learnt and improved. Also a while ago there was a post about someone selling fishers books or something on ebay so if you had a look at that thread you might find the name of some good books.Also it had tournament crib notes or something.

 No,     likesforests mine is  NOT an original copy.  I said an "old" copy!

To answer someone's question here, the russian masters are still around. They have not abandoned chess. But world chess domination is  "cyclical" like the great empires  of old!   They rise and fall over time.

 I absolutely agree with you,  likesforests  that Staunton's Handbook is very interesting from the historical viewpoint. But there are so many better & more effective ways that a modern  chess  aficionado can  do to pickup their tactical skills . As for the game analysis and explanation of chess theory, they were meant

for a  bygone era, absolutely out of "sinc"  to-day.  Nobody plays these openings seriously now. 

 Some News: I've been researching and found some very interesting details in Kasparov's book about the previous world champions.

In the first book he explain that morphy was an erudite too, since he dominated fluently, languages like french, spanish and german.

So he studied "Analyse" from Philidor,  "La Régence" magazine, the Chess Player's Chronicle magazine, and the german Deutsche Schachzeitung.
As well the Bilguer's "Handbuch", and the Staunton "Chess Handbook".

Don't know which resources took Kasparov to declare that. He expose some declarations from Fischer about Morphy.

And at this point Fischer stated that Morphy played the open games like a XX century master, but the Kasparov statement is that maybe in the 60's the open games theory was not really advanced, but in the beggining of the 21st century that theory of open games has been experimenting Revolutionary changes.

I wanna know what exactly he tried to say...

I think that a talent like the Morphy, can let you progress quickly, but in chess, the pure talent is not enough.
To be so good, you need to be very obsessed, and be very greedy plus the talent and the hard work of study (at least at some point of mastery).

Paul Morphy was known to have only personally possessed 5 books:

Chess Studies by Horwitz and Kling
La Regénce collection (of Lionel Kieseritzky)
The Chess Tournament by Howard Staunton
Chess Player's Handbook and Companion by Howard Staunton (owned by Maurian)
Treatise on the Game of Chess by William Lewis (owned by Maurian)

Undoubtedly, his father's and Uncle's libraries contained other chess books as well as periodicals.

In the June 1881 issue of Brentano's Chess Monthly, Ernst Falkbeer had this to say:

"I was at the time editing the Chess Column of the London Sunday Times and anxious to reproduce them there  [the Morphy-Lowenthal match games].  In order to obtain the requisite information,  I had to apply to one of the contesting parties  [the games were kept as the participants' intellectual property].  I first went to Morphy who received me most cordially,  and declared his entire willingness to dictate the last partie, played the day before.  I begged him to repeat the game on the board as I would, in this manner,  be better able to follow the progress of the contest.  Morphy consented and at the 10^th move of Black  (Lowenthal),  I asked him to stop for a moment,  since it seemed to me at this particular point,  a better move might have been made.  "Oh, you probably mean the move you yourself made in one of your contests with Drufresne?  answered Morphy in his simple,  artless way of speaking.  I was startled.  The partie mentioned had been played in Berlin in 1851,  seven years before and I had totally forgotten all its details.  On observing this,  Morphy called for a second board and began,  without the least hesitation,  to repeat the game from the first to the last move without making a single mistake.  I was speechless from surprise.  Here was a man who attention was constantly distracted by countless demands on his memory and yet had perfectly retained for seven years all the details of a game insignificant in itself and moreover,  printed in a language and description unknown to him."  [having been published in the Berliner Schachzeitung, 1851]

 

Apparently Morphy kept up with games, but did not study chess theory. When asked if he ever studied chess from books, he replied that he looked a a few books but never saw anything he didn't already know naturally.