Do you know what year it was published, or have any idea who wrote it?
Looking for old beginner Chess book
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I'm afraid not. :(
It would have to have been published at least 20 years ago though, because that was when I read it. It already seemed pretty old at that point. It was in the kids section too, so it was aimed at child beginners.
It was quite large as well, between A3 and A4 paper size, hard cover and quite thin.
"Beginner" was most likely in the title, but I realise that's about as helpful as "chess" or "book".
It might be out of print.
You're probably not still looking for it now, but the book you had was, "Chess for Young Beginners", written by William T. McLeod, Ronald Mongredien and Jean-Paul Colbus, published by Collins. I also learnt using this excellent book. It's out of print now, but second hand copies can still be found e.g.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chess-Young-Beginners-William-McLeod/dp/0001061127
Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I'm afraid I'm new.
My elderly mother's looking to get into chess, and was looking for a good simple book to take her through the various steps of just learning what way the pieces move and really basic strategy.
I taught myself to play when I was a young lass out of a library book that I can't for the life of me recall the name of, but I think it would be very helpful to her.
The book used anthropomorphised pieces all throughout, so the Red (black) Queen and King were dark haired and scowly, where as the White ones were fair haired and elegant, the knights were on horseback, the Rooks were crossbowmen atop wooden towers, the bishops wielded maces etc.
On the front cover was a red pawn, who gestured towards the book and said in a speech bubble "Begin playing now, I'll show you how."
And the progression of the book was generally by learning to play with one piece at a time, and at the end of each section learning to play a cut-down game with all the pieces you've used so far (so once you'ld done the pawn and knight chapters, you'ld play a 4 pawn 1 knight game against your opponent).
It also had some trick-lessons disguised as games like "Now that you know how to move a bishop, using 2 knights positioned here and here, prevent the bishop player getting to the other side of the board."
And I'd do this with a friend and the knight player would ALWAYS lose, then we'd turn the page to find:
"You may have noticed this is impossible to do based on the positions we made the knights start, this is because of the Bishop's far superior mobility as a piece, while the knight piece has a number of advantages, this is not one of them. Redo the following exercises but start the pieces HERE instead and see the outcome."
I personally found the lesson progression between theory and practical VERY easy to learn, and by the end of the book it finished with some comparitively advanced sections, like forking, sacrifice and castling.
Using this book I managed to teach myself, all my friends, and a few of my nephews how to play Chess, so I'd love to track it down if anyone can help me remember the name of it based on my description.
Thanks in advance!