"American Chess Review," et al.

I was reading through this periodical which seems to have folded as quickly almost as it came. 

I found a few items of interest....

Here is one, from the Sept. 1886 issue:

That got me looking for a few things about Morphy and I ended up reading Horatio White's collection of Willard Fiske's papers.  There I found the following excerpt of a letter from Fiske to Prof. George Allen,  (chess historian [most notably, "the Life of Philidor"], Latin and Greek professor at the Univ. of Pennsylvania., Episcopalian minister [who later converted to Catholicism], member of the Chess Code committee for the first American Chess Congress. Allen was from Vermont, but moved to and worked in Philadelphia.   E.B. Cook wrote this extensive biography of Allen for the "American Chess Journal following Allen's death).

Here's the excerpt:

I would like to talk to you through a sheet or two about our young hero, Paul Morphy. He and I are the best of friends. Outside of chess he is a person every way worthy of one's friendship. Well-educated, generous, genial, courteous, he is the most perfect of gentlemen. (His Catholicity would be an argument in his favor with you). In chess he is, I am confident, without a peer among living players, without a superior among dead ones. Modest and unassuming he bears defeat with grace and meets success without arrogance. Rapid in his play his combinations are all sure. His memory and farsightedness are astounding. He can repeat the hundred games he has played since coming to New York without an error. After a game I have seen him play over the variations on any particular move as rapidly as he could move the pieces. He knows everything in the books thoroughly and can play over for you the games of M'Donnell, Staunton, Von der Lasa, Kieseritzky etc. by the week. Notwithstanding his swiftness of thought he does not lack the coolness requisite in a match-player. Nothing can be more pleasing or graceful than the elegance of his play. I mean his manner of touching the pieces and moving them and so forth.  I have never seen him impatient but once. In his second game with Paulsen, after the German had taken repeatedly thirty, forty-five and fifty minutes (and in some instances over one hour) upon his moves Morphy became so thoroughly worn out that in his haste he made what should have been his second move first and was only able to draw a won game (a splendid piece of chess art it had been up to that moment). He was so depressed at the failure to score so fine a game (although no one but me knew its effect upon his mind) that he played weakly the two following contests and lost one of them. See this list (of his victories) and agree with me that my panegyric is not strongly worded

. . . .
Mead and Lichtenhein cut some rare jokes upon the Damon and Pythias friendship of Morphy and myself. Being just of a height and together a good deal we are known as the Siamese twins. The truth is I like him as a man as much as I admire him as a chess player. He will edit the book of the Congress with me and in all probability his name will also appear on the cover of next year's Monthlies in conjunction with mine. I hope he may go back by way of Philadelphia so that you may see him and learn to like him as I do. . . .

Nov. 22d, 1857.

Is the periodical online to read through?

Yep. Through either Google Books  or Hathitrust

Wow, that is a piece well worth reading. Morphy is my absolute favorite player of all time, but it is hard to find much about him other than the few articles I've found, this never came up in any article I've read. Good job!!!! (have to admit to old age laziness :-))

I'm more interested in how his trophies sold for around $1000-2000. Such an item today should be worth tons to collectors.

> He knows everything in the books thoroughly

So, he didn't learn the game just by watching his father and uncle play. He studied just like other chess masters. 

I wonder if the Morphys' had a copy of Philidor in the family library.

No. He did learn the game by watching Alonzo and Ernest.  He became the best player in the world partly through some innate talent as well as through absorbing the games played by past and current masters. 

Try here
then here.

Yep. Through either Google Books  or Hathitrust

Thanks.  CJA is going to begin to do some work on collecting Chess Periodicals - these things are strewn all over the internet and we want to corral them a bit for researchers/writers, etc.  Please feel free to pass along any others you are aware of. 

Sure

Lovely piece. Great research Batgirl and thank you for sharing. I have come across the "manner of Morphy's handling of pieces during play"- the adjectives employed are always of an intimate nature, which further compounds chess' greatest tragedy.

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Cool it was really expensive. Thanks for the information 

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