Sketchbook of American Chess Problematists

2 volumes. [4]+138 pages with frontispiece, diagrams and index; [4]+163 pages with frontispiece, diagrams and index. Duodecimo (6 3/4" x 4 3/4") bound in original publisher's beige cloth with brown lettering to spine in original onion skin wrappers with original slipcase. Overbrook Chess Series number 2. (Betts: 32-32) First edition limited to 250 copies.

The two volumes contain 166 problems (mainly direct mates in 2 or 3) by 84 American composers, accompanied by short accounts of their lives and their work in problem composition, the text forming a continuous historical narrative of problem composition in the United States since 1845. Volume two includes an epilogue by Vincent L Eaton: A sketch of the life and activities of Alain White with 12 of his compositions. Solutions at the end of each volume. A wonderful summary of early American composition with special note of the wonderful compositions of Sam Loyd and W. Shinkman, both geniuses in chess problems along with a survey of the contributions of Orestes Brownson and his iconoclastic and scarce chess magazine.

Condition:

A fine set in a slightly rubbed slipcase.