{"id":882,"date":"2025-06-01T11:09:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T15:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/?p=882"},"modified":"2025-06-01T11:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T15:13:13","slug":"the-chess-players-instructor-1872","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/the-chess-players-instructor-1872\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chess Player&#8217;s Instructor (1872)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"metaslider-id-869\" style=\"width: 100%;\" class=\"ml-slider-3-100-0 metaslider metaslider-flex metaslider-869 ml-slider ms-theme-default-base has-dots-nav\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Chess Instructor\" data-height=\"700\" data-width=\"700\">\n    <div id=\"metaslider_container_869\">\n        <div id=\"metaslider_869\">\n            <ul class='slides'>\n                <li style=\"display: block; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-876 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-06-01 11:04:04\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2214\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7693-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-869 slide-876 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_7693\" style=\"margin-top: 6.7578125%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7693-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7693-300x259.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7693-1024x885.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7693-768x664.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7693-1536x1328.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7693-2048x1771.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/li>\n                <li style=\"display: none; 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width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-879 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-06-01 11:04:04\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2288\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7698-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-869 slide-879 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_7698\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; width: 89.375%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7698-scaled.jpeg 2288w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7698-268x300.jpeg 268w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7698-915x1024.jpeg 915w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7698-768x859.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7698-1373x1536.jpeg 1373w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7698-1831x2048.jpeg 1831w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2288px) 100vw, 2288px\" \/><\/li>\n                <li style=\"display: none; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-880 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-06-01 11:04:04\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1819\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7704-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-869 slide-880 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_7704\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; width: 71.0546875%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7704-scaled.jpeg 1819w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7704-213x300.jpeg 213w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7704-728x1024.jpeg 728w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7704-768x1081.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7704-1092x1536.jpeg 1092w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7704-1455x2048.jpeg 1455w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1819px) 100vw, 1819px\" \/><\/li>\n                <li style=\"display: none; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-881 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-06-01 11:04:04\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1864\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7706-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-869 slide-881 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_7706\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; width: 72.8125%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7706-scaled.jpeg 1864w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7706-218x300.jpeg 218w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7706-746x1024.jpeg 746w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7706-768x1055.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7706-1118x1536.jpeg 1118w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_7706-1491x2048.jpeg 1491w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1864px) 100vw, 1864px\" \/><\/li>\n            <\/ul>\n        <\/div>\n        \n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Full Title: The Chess Player\u2019s Instructor, Or, Guide to Beginners; Containing All the Information Necessary to Acquire a Knowledge of the Game: With Diagrams Illustrative of the Various Movements of the Pieces<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Author: Charles Henry Stanley<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Publisher: Robert M. De Witt, New York<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Estimated year of printing: 1872<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Copyright 1859<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inscription: J. G. Pollard<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The author of this instructional chess book, Charles Henry Stanley (1819 &#8211; 1901) is notable for being the first U.S. Chess Champion, having won the first U.S. championship in 1845.&nbsp; He immigrated to New York from London in 1843 to work in the British Consulate and was an influential chess player at the time.&nbsp; Besides his championship win, he wrote a regular newspaper column on chess, started the <em>American Chess<\/em> magazine, and wrote the first American book on chess, <em>31 Games of Chess<\/em>.&nbsp; However, the standard of play was increasing rapidly at this time, and he lost the next U.S. championship to Paul Morphy, who became an international celebrity in the world of chess while Stanley was largely forgotten. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The back cover and the final 22 pages&nbsp; of this book are all advertisements for other books from this publisher.&nbsp; Entire books focused on very specific topics such as writing letters, giving speeches, measuring things, and even how to keep horses (this was long before cars existed).&nbsp; There\u2019s also many books of popular music for voice &amp; piano (called \u201csongsters\u201d), with not a single recognizable song, and nearly 100 short plays \u2014 likely forms of home entertainment for a society that didn\u2019t yet have radio or television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This book has a copyright date of 1859, when the first edition was published, but lacks a publication date for this third edition. The address given for the De Witt publisher, 33 Rose Street, was only used from 1870 through 1877, which narrows it down.&nbsp; Also, looking at the books advertised in the back pages, many of them date to the early 1870s, and one in particular, <em>Napoleon\u2019s Complete Dream Book<\/em>, was published in 1872.&nbsp; So, a printing date of 1872 seems like a reasonable guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Historical context:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The game of chess dates to around 600 CE in India.&nbsp; The modern moves for the pieces were adopted in Europe in the 1400s, and the first printed book about chess appeared in 1495.&nbsp; The 1800s saw a dramatic increase in interest in game.&nbsp; The iconic \u201cStaunton\u201d chess set style was first used in 1849 and quickly became the standard.&nbsp; Chess clocks were first introduced in 1883 and helped accelerate international competition.&nbsp; Wilhelm Steinitz, of Austria, became the first world champion in 1886.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Further Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edochess.ca\/batgirl\/stanley.html\" title=\"\">Morphy&#8217;s Opponents: Charles Henry Stanley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/maynereid.com\/publishers\/dewitt.html\" title=\"\">De Witt Publisher Information<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebay.com\/itm\/156535253843\" title=\"\">Napoleon&#8217;s Complete Dream Book (latest book advertised)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chess.com\/article\/view\/history-of-chess#:~:text=Chess%20has%20a%20long%20and,the%20very%20late%2020th%20century.\" title=\"\">History of Chess<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Notes: Copyright 1859 Inscription: J. G. Pollard The author of this instructional chess book, Charles Henry Stanley (1819 &#8211; 1901) is notable for being the first U.S. Chess Champion, having won the first U.S. championship in 1845.&nbsp; He immigrated to New York from London in 1843 to work in the British Consulate and was an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":886,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions\/886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}