Nouvel essai sur le jeu des échecs avec des reflexions militaires relatives à ce jeu

viii+x+254 pages with illustrations. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 1/4") bound quarter leather with marbled boards and gilt lettering to spine Page ends marbled. This first edition was not for sale and intended for subscribers only, of which an interesting list is added with 196 names. The princes themselves subscribed for 24 copies. With some copies for the author about 250 copies would have been printed. (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 547) First edition.

Elias Stein was a Dutch chess master, born in Lorraine into a Jewish family, he settled in The Hague. There he became the royal court's player. He explicitly related the experience of playing chess to military strategic ability. He was teacher of the princes of Orange to whom the book is dedicated in print, among them the later King William I.

He recommended the Dutch Defence as the best reply to 1.d4 in his book Nouvel essai sur le jeu des échecs, avec des réflexions militaires relatives à ce jeu (1789), later published in Dutch (1834).

His biography was written by F.W. von Mauvillon in a book Anweisung zur Erlernung des Schachspiels.

Condition:

Wear to boards, corners bumped and rubbed, spine ends rubbed with some chips, slight crack at front head hinge, previous owner's label to front pasted down, name to page 2 else a good copy of a scarce item.