Paul Morphy World Champion

Love the pun ^_^

The only instance that I recall off-hand of Morphy being, not actually introduced but noted in a speech, as "Chess Champion of the World," is by Martin Van Buren's son, John,  at Morphy's victory reception at the NY Chess Club on 3-25-1859.  I can't recall Edge calling Morphy, or refering tto him as, a World Champion, but, if so, maybe you can give it.  At the end of his book Edge said, " Surely, it is not too much to declare, on the authority of so much proof, that  Morphy can give pawn and move to every living player."

Morphy isn't recorded anywhere that I know of to have claimed any title (except perhaps that of American Champion by virtue of winning a Congress established specifically for the purpose of finding a national champion), though it seems he proved to his own satisfaction that he was, indeed, the best player in the world.    Most of the world seemed to agree.   Still, there's a difference between being the best player in the world and being World Champion.  

Morphy never said he wasn't World Champion, but why would he?  I can't think of any sport that had World Championship at that time and, while the concept doesn't seem completely nonexistant, it was certainly very shadowy and unformed.

Excellent post. One has to remember that the concept of the "world" was quite different at that time.

Chessquotes.com has a quote, supposedly by Capablanca, mentioning Morphy as a World Champion:

The great World Champions Morphy, Steinitz, and Lasker were past masters in the art of Pawn play; they had no superiors in their handling of endgames. The present World Champion has not the strength of the other three as an endgame player, and is therefore inferior to them.

I have no idea about its credibility though.

I have spent quite a bit of time playing through the pgn files of the early masters, and it is quite amazing how far ahead Mr Morphy was from anybody else in the world. People love his combinations, but for some strange reason I love his endgame play. He knew exactly what he wanted to achieve and simply used combinations to head the game in that direction. And very impressive that he played so quickly on the board.

Having said that, however, I am very comfortable that Steinitz is the first WC. The playing style that he brought in during 1870's really was a forerunner of what 20th century chess would become. I much prefer playing through a game from that era than the Morphy era. Both sides played defense so much better and it feels like 'real chess.' 

GM Ben Finegold in one of his St. Louis Chess club lectures said he believes Morphy was a modern master who went back in a time machine to teach them how to play chess. :) http://youtu.be/CbRkqqawcTo

Yeah my memory was faulty about the end of that book.  It was almost 20 years ago when I read it.  

Also you are correct in your general statement that although Edge refered to him as "chess champion" even in the title, he often refered to several chess champions.  Morphy was the "American chess champion" who was looking for a "European chess champion" or "English chess champion" to have a match with.  

I did  a search of the pdf for champion.  There is not only no "world chess champion mentioned" but the word champion always seems to be modified by somthing like "prussian champion or European champion" etc.

https://archive.org/stream/paulmorphychess00morpgoog#page/n32/mode/2up/search/champion

I guess I my view of world champion isn't really dependant on official mechanics.   It has more to do with at some point or other proving that you are/were the best in the world.  That is why I can easilly say the people who won the FIDE KO tournaments were not world champions even though they won that official fide event.