The book ''A History of Chess'' was written by

H. J. R. Murray Harold James Ruthven Murray (24 June 1868 – 16 May 1955) was a British educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. His book, ''A History of Chess'', is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive hist ...

(1868–1955) and published in 1913.

Details

Murray's aim is threefold: to present as complete a record as is possible of the varieties of

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

that exist or have existed in different parts of the world; to investigate the ultimate origin of these games and the circumstances of the invention of chess; and to trace the development of the modern European game from the first appearance of its ancestor, the Indian

chaturanga Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chines ...

, in the beginning of the 7th century. The first part of the book describes the history of the Asiatic varieties of chess, the Arabic and Persian literature on chess, and the theory and practice of the game of

shatranj Shatranj ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج; from Middle Persian ''chatrang'' ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as i ...

. The second part is concerned with chess in Europe in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, its role in literature and in the moralities, and with medieval chess problems, leading up to the beginning of modern chess and the history of the modern game through to the 19th century. Murray, who knew the English and German languages, taught himself

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

to read chess documents. By collating sources and eliminating duplicates therein he lists 553 complete Islamic shatranj

chess problem A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...

s and their stated solutions, plus 16 ''mikhāriq'' ("puzzles", singular ''mikhrāq'') (which he numbers RW29 and 554 to 568). During this, he was caused extra work by finding that one of his Arabic-language source documents was descended from a predecessor whose pages had been shuffled and some pages lost, which was then copied by another scribe in old times. The book also contains a list of medieval European chess problems. As some chess variants do not use an 8×8 board, he uses the algebraic notation to represent chess moves, but: * He represents a capture by ''piece'' × ''piece'', not ''piece'' × ''square''. * He writes P at the start of a pawn move. He quotes lengths of text from older European sources untranslated from their original languages (medieval forms of French and German and Spanish etc.).

Other books

Murray's companion work was ''A History of Board-Games other than Chess'' . He also wrote a new history of the game from its beginnings until 1866, called ''A Short History of Chess''. This was found among the papers left behind at his death in 1955, and was published, with contributions by B. Goulding Brown and Harry Golombek, in 1963.

Impact

In the words of Daniel E. O'Sullivan, David Shenk writes in ''The Immortal Game'':

Printing data

*Murray, H. J. R
''A History of Chess''
(London: Oxford University Press, 1913) *Murray, H. J. R. ''A History of Chess'' (Northampton, MA: Benjamin Press, 1985) *Murray, H. J. R. ''A History of Chess'' (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012, paperback reprint of the 1913 edition)

References

External links

''A History Of Chess'' by H. J. R. Murray
at the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:History of Chess, A 1913 non-fiction books Chess books History of chess 1913 in chess