For Paul Morphy Fans

Valeri Beim argues inPaul Morphy: A Modern Perspective (2005) that Morphy understood the principles that others would articulate, principles that would revolutionize chess. 

http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-small-library.html

I should write more about this terrific book, but that link is a beginning.

To me, there are several points to make about Morphy that makes any comparison difficult.  One, he didn't retire in 1859--Morphy retired in 1852.  He came out of retirement to play in the US Chess Congress, then went on a short tour of Europe before re-retiring shortly after his return.  Two, there was this looming thing that became the US Civil War that was way, way more important to him than this kids game that he had already given up, though it is difficult to say to what extent that that influenced his mindset.  Three, the style of chess was different then, with brilliancy much more highly valued than accuracy; the games that got published were not about R+P endgames.  It's a testiment to Morphy's character that he played as accurately as he did when he really didn't need to.  Four, there was no tournament play (as we play today), so getting the top players together didn't happen much outside of the coffee houses.  As a career, chess was looked upon like acting--it's what you did when you couldn't do anything else.  The play of that time is so far removed from the sterile environment of today as to be incomparable.  I could just see Kasparov or Fischer playing in those places; players smoking, drinking, chatting, betting on the games--yeah, right.  For me, the comparisons begin to become valid only around the mid-1890s.  Now you have round robin tourneys, you keep your own score, you play with clocks, there are adjournments, eveybody has played through Morphy's games, they've all read Steinitz's and Tarrasch's books; you have the first "modern" players.  But before 1870, it's a completely different approach to the game.