Often buried in oblivion, Ignaz Kolisch (1837-1889) was one of the leading chess players in the period 1859-1867, before he became a bank director with some help from the Rothschild family and later on a "Baron von Kolisch" as well as an eminent chess patron. Fabrizio Zavatarelli has raised an outstanding chess literary monument to that most interesting, witty and charming personality. His deeply researched work contains 324 annotated Kolisch games, more than the double of the previously known fund, and he gives all found sources with their possible additional information. Moreover a lot of other coeval top chess masters are portrayed thus sketching a picture of the European chess scene at that time. Many diagrams, rare photographs, illustrations and drawings enrich the monograph which leaves a mark of excellence in the series of chess biographies by McFarland.

(R.B., I 2016)

A (tentative) high praise has been given by Edward Winter in his C.N. 9623.