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November 2020

Tim Harding: Steinitz in London, A Chess Biography with 623 Games

Tim Harding - Steinitz in London - frontcover
Tim Harding - Steinitz in London - frontcover

by Fabrizio Zavatarelli

Our well-known member Tim Harding had recently added a new monograph to his previous seminal works. Steinitz in London, A Chess Biography with 623 Games (415 p., McFarland, ISBN 978-1-4766-6953-3) in fact goes beyond its title, since it adds a comprehensive account of the Bohemian Caesar’s early activity in Vienna (chapt. 1) and casts a glance at his late years, as well (chapts. 12 and 13). Several pages are also devoted to London chess life and especially to its clubs (in chapts. 3, 5, 9 and 10).

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Die Feuilletons von Ignaz Kolisch

Die Feuilletons von Ignaz Kolisch - frontcover
Die Feuilletons von Ignaz Kolisch - frontcover

Five years ago our member Fabrizio Zavaratelli published his impressive biography of a now hardly known, but nevertheless rather mythological chess master from the 19th century, Ignaz Kolisch. His book Ignaz Kolisch The life and chess career was introduced on our website by webmaster Ralf Binnewirtz (see Zavatarelli on Kolisch).

This year Fabrizio Zavaratelli, together with our member Luca D’Ambrosio and with Michael Burghardt, have published a kind of complementary work Die Feuilletons von Ignaz Kolisch (544 p., Edition Marco, ISBN 978–3-924833-82-4). On the website of the Glarean Magazin Ralf Binnewirtz, now a former member, has published an extended review of this new publication on and of Ignaz Kolisch. You will find it on F. Zavatarelli u.a: Feuilletons von Ignaz Kolisch.

By the way, on these Swiss website Ralf Binnewirtz reviewed in depth many chess books, for instance recently the biography of Hein Donner by the late Alexander Münninghoff.

Below the first paragraph of the review is shown.

Bob van de Velde

Das schachjournalistische Phänomen Ideka

von Ralf Binnewirtz

Drei Schachhistoriker und -autoren haben sich zusammengetan, um die 92 sonntäglichen Feuilletons von Ignaz Kolisch – erschienen 1886-1888 in dessen eigener Wiener Allgemeinen Zeitung – in einem kompakten Band zu vereinen, der weit über die Schachwelt hinaus Interesse beanspruchen darf. Denn diese Feuilletons tangieren und reflektieren nahezu alle Bereiche der Gesellschaft und vermitteln in der ausgefeilten Prosa des Autors ein Zeit- und Sittengemälde Westeuropas aus der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts.

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