Which books Morphy did study?

The other part of the original question concerned the availability of books in Morphy's time.  Before modern chess, literature was comprised of some chess positions and some allegorical works, etc.  (see my recent posting Pawns and Pieces  also see Bill Wall's page on ancient texts).  From the 17th century to the time of Philidor, Calabrians - books of the games of Greco - were the main chess reading.  Ruy Lopez, before that, had a "bestseller" as did a few others,  but Greco kicked them off the charts.  Then in the 18th century,  Lolli,  del Rio and Ponziani  (the Anonymous Modenese) wrote a popular work as did Philidor himself.  But writing really picked up in the early 19th century.  William Lewis and George Walker printed numerous books on chess.  In France, Bourdonnais had his periodical Palemede and then Kiesetitzky had La Regence.  Germany had a lot of scientific chess liturature starting with Bilguier's Handbuch.  Around the time of Morphy, there was a good bit of chess liturature floating around.  Staunton was considered one of the leading writers as well as  a leading player.

"just think of how good he could have been if he would have had all that material on himself to read!!!"

I'm afraid he's going to come back in a spirit form and beat me at Queen-odds with his eyes closed as payback.

I know this is a really old post, but I stumbled across it... so in case others do, I just wanted to mention one tiny thing! Earlier, people were wondering what books Fischer read... I don't know the answer, but I do know one thing. There was a point in time in his career where he learned Russian so he could read Russian books and magazines on chess! He also seemed to act like it was really important that he do this. Given that, and given how concentrated chess talen was in the Soviet Union... well, he might not have been able to keep up with developments there if he hadn't learned Russian. And if that hadn't happened, would he have ever been able to beat such an amazing player as Spassky? Without learning Russian and studying, Fischer might have never been World Champ. Study is clearly important for everybody -- including the greats who have the most natural talent!!!

     Morphy had an amazing memory. Besides the chess games he remembered perfectly, as mentioned above, he memorized the entire Louisiana legal code--one of the longest and most complicated in the world, while learning his law degree.

     Everyone's brain develops in its own unique manner. Some people's thought processes develop in such a way that they seem to instinctively understand some field of knowledge. This happens most often in mathematics, music and chess. Rare young children can grasp the essentials of these "sciences" more easily than highly-intelligent adults can after years of study. Capablanca reportedly learned to play chess simply by watching his father play some games vs a friend an almost immediately became a very strong player, Reshevsky toured the world as a child, playing simuls and exhibitions. Very probably Morphy was similarly gifted.

     How much Morphy actually studied chess is uncertain. He only became a famous chess player because when he graduated law school he was too young to practice law in Louisiana, taking a couple of gap years to go to the big cities in the north to test himself against the best American players, then on to Europe, where his newly-earned reputation earned him contests with the greatest players in the world--whom he handily defeated.

     Ironically, he didn't consider chess to be an endeavor worthy of an educated gentleman, had so many people come to his legal office to ask about chess that he gave up most of his practice, and only played a few offhand odds games with a couple of friends in the last 15 years of his life. Chess won in the end--the Morphy family burial plot in New Orleans has several large marble chess pieces in front of it.

     Staunton didn't play Morphy because his offer to play via telegraph didn't reach New Orleans until after Morphy had sailed for Europe. They couldn't play in person as Staunton was sick (he seldom enjoyed good health) and was busy with his contract to produce a complete annotated version of Shakespeare's plays. Morphy did play others who were roughly Staunton's equals at the 1851 international tournament. Morphy crushed them all, and it is highly unlikely that Staunton could have defeated him. Morphy was miles ahead of everyone else in his era in his understanding of chess.

Morphy wrote Brain Salad Surgery, didn't he? 😁

Listen up, kids. This is a bunch of people 15 years ago on this site that know their Chess history. It would seem that several are no longer here. I tagged it before realizing the date. Sometimes it is irritating when people bring old posts forward, then again there is a wealth of information in here.

@Optimissed You're still here. Aren't you a famous Rock and Roller?