A History Of Chess

Author: Harold James Ruthven "H J R" Murray (1868-1955)Year: 1913Publisher: University of Oxford PressPlace: OxfordDescription: 900 pages with frontispiece, illustrations, plates, tables, diagrams and index. Small quarto (10 1/2" x6 3/4") bound in original publisher's blue cloth with gilt lettering to spine. (Betts: 5-6). First edition.The author's aim: "to present as complete a record as possible of the varieties of chess which 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". The result is a comprehensive history, based on original sources, from the earliest game to the 19th century. Earlier histories had relied chiefly on the written documents, but here considerable weight is also attached to the philological evidence (i.e. the significance of chess terms i