Chess analysed: or instructions by which a perfect knowledge of this noble game may in a short time be acquir’d. 

London, J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1750. 

8vo, pp. xi, [1 (blank)], ‘146’ [recte 144], with woodcut ornament on title; some occasional light soiling; early nineteenth-century calf-backed boards with marbled sides; rubbed, extremities worn, upper joint cracked, upper board coming loose.

£1250

Approximately:
US $1577€1462

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Chess analysed: or instructions by which a perfect knowledge of this noble game may in a short time be acquir’d. 

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Rare first edition in English of the most important theoretical work on chess of the eighteenth century.  Philidor, by far the best player of his era, spent much of his time in England after 1747, hence the London publication of the first edition of his Analyze des echecs in 1749. 

‘In 1749 L’analyse du jeu des Échecs was published in London; the first edition of 443 copies was followed by two further editions the same year and an English edition in 1750.  More than 100 editions, in many languages, were published subsequently.  For the first time an author explained with detailed annotations how the middle-game should be played; for the first time the strategy of the game as a whole was described; for the first time the concepts of the blockade, prophylaxis, positional sacrifice, and mobility of the pawn formation were laid down.  Philidor’s famous comment, “Les pions sont l’âme du jeu” (in the English edition “ … the Pawns; they are the very Life of the Game”), was often misunderstood.  He believed that ignorance of correct pawn play was the biggest weakness of his contemporaries.  Some thought he was saying that pawns were more important than pieces, others that everything should be subordinated to the aim of promoting pawns.  Philidor was also the first writer to examine a basic endgame (R + B v. R) in depth, although that was almost his only contribution to this phase of the game.  He was already regarded as the strongest player in France, the Netherlands, and England, and the book consolidated his chess reputation’ (The Oxford Companion to Chess). 

Provenance: ‘Matilda White’ (early nineteenth-century inscription at head of title); John White, with armorial bookplate; Bernard Quaritch Catalogue 428 (1929), no. 1091. 

ESTC T109591 (giving twelve locations); Van der Linde I, p. 394. 

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