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Chessville
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Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City Reviewed by Rick Kennedy
Oh, and as far as I know, none of them ever played chess. Contrast these recollections with the explorations of our contemporary, Martin Frère Hillyer, whose great-great-grandfather was Thomas Frère. Do I detect a number of philistines scratching their heads in wonder? Oh, this younger generation. Yes, Virginia, there was chess before the advent of Robert J. Fischer, even a century and a half before, when another young American took the chess world by storm… It was a different world, and from 1820 to 1900, Thomas Frère was there. Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City is his great-great-grandson’s warmly written account.
In 1857 Thomas Frère wrote his version of Hoyle’s Games (“the family entertainment center” of the 1800s, notes Hillyer) that included a section on chess. A year later he gave the world Frère’s Chess Hand-Book, the first such book printed in the United States. The following year he wrote the first book about Paul Morphy, Morphy’s Games of Chess and Frère’s Problem Tournament, containing 103 of the American champion’s games, and the winners from a chess problem tournament Frère had held through his chess column in the Frank Leslie Illustrated Newspaper. The Chess Hand-Book contained 50 games. The following is one of seven that Hillyer reproduces in Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess: The
Queen’s Gambit
Hillyer likewise reproduces 31 chess problems that had been included in Frère’s Chess Hand-Book, from challenging orthodox mates-in-two to the following mind-bender: Problem No. 31 – by Herr Kling
He also gives 13 games and 39 problems from Morphy’s Games of Chess and Frère’s Problem Tournament. So, if you are fond of old chess games (Fischer liked to study them and sometimes revived certain opening ideas) and chess problems, you’re probably still with me, right? Good. Those are a relatively smaller part of Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess, however, as the author uses many sources (including a family diary, the Glen Ridge Public Library Historical Collection, and the inimitable John G. White Collection of the Cleveland Public Library) to tell the story of Thomas Frère, and the chess world that swirled around him. The young Thomas became fascinated with chess after observing Mazel’s chess automaton, the Turk. Later he would, among other things: - start the Brooklyn Chess Club in 1856; - help organize the First American Chess Congress in 1857, where he would meet and befriend the winner, Paul Morphy; - help start the Manhattan Chess Club in 1877; - help organize a spectacular Living Chess exhibition at New York’s Academy of Music in 1879; - help organize the Fifth American Chess Congress as well as draw up the official rules of American tournament play in 1880; and - act as Steinitz’s second in his 1885 match with Zukertort. Martin Frère Hillyer uses words, pictures, drawings and diagrams to give the reader a tour of a time when chess was often quite different than it is today – and sometimes alarmingly similar.
The following year Paul Morphy traveled to Europe, seeking to meet the best chess players that the Old World had to offer. He saw success wherever he turned – except in being able to play a match against the multi-talented Howard Staunton. Some see this unfulfilled quest and subsequent disappointment as a primary cause for Morphy’s retirement from chess. Regardless, strong pro-Morphy and pro-Staunton arguments ignited quickly and remain remarkably heated 150 years later. Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City gives an interesting new perspective: Frère, sympathetic to Morphy, was nonetheless outraged at the scathing attacks upon Staunton, primarily by Daniel W. Fiske, editor of Chess Monthly. There followed a vicious protracted battle of words, which Hillyer relates in the aptly-titled chapter “It smells like a Fiske.” The author takes a balanced stance, although one sympathetic toward Staunton:
At the same time, Hillyer seems pleased with the strategy to bring Zukertort into line for a match with Steinitz:
Thomas Frère had learned from l’affair Morphy – get it (or put it) in writing! Although there was no controversy about water closets or blue teeth at the 1880 Fifth American Chess Congress, there was an imbroglio concerning Preston Ware’s complaint that he had agreed to be paid $20 by James Grundy to draw their game, only to have his opponent intensify his efforts and actually win! Hillyer aptly covers this smudge spot on American chess history. In Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City Martin Frère Hillyer has written an informative and entertaining book that is both charming and accessible. It is well-organized, chronologically, and contains, besides Acknowledgments and an Introduction, a List of Illustrations, Appendix A: A Chess Collector’s Tale, Appendix B: Morphy and Steinitz, Chapter Notes, a Selected Bibliography, an Index of Games and Openings and a General Index. The author must be very happy with his publisher, as McFarland & Company has taken his labor of love and produced an attractive work that ought to find a place on the shelves of a whole lot of libraries that have chess sections. (If your library doesn’t have a copy, it may be possible to request a purchase. Check it out.) Furthermore, any chess club that boasts of its own extensive resources is at least one book shy if it doesn’t have this one. (Even if it is not all about the Siclian Najdorf.) Finally, there is a hearty band of chess players out there who not only play the player, not the board, but also want to know about the lives and adventures of different players not just a dissection of what happened on their boards – for them this book about Hillyer’s great-great-grandfather is also sincerely intended. It will “only” give you days of reading enjoyment; and for many of us, that’s just fine. Oh, did I mention
that those pirates of old might have been led by Captain Jack Sparrow?
Nah, never mind…
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