Harrie Grondijs: Unforgotten chess men. View Watchlist >
Three obscured yet unforgettable chess episodes and chess figures
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Item # 2922857
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Firstly, 'Translating a White Bishop' describes some chess encounters of J.F. Byrne in his autobiographical Silent Years (1953). The chance meetings in the book took place around the start of the 20th century in Dublin. First of all, Byrne introduces James Joyce's Buck Mulligan ('pseudonym' for the writer Oliver St. John Gogarty) who in Ulysses is thought to observe a chess game between John Howard Parnell, brother of the Irish nationalist politician Charles Steward Parnell, against (presumably) James Porterfield Rynd at the DBC restaurant (deemed "Damn Bad Cakes" by Mulligan). Byrne met Porterfield Rynd on several occasions. "[…] He was fond of the piano and many an evening I heard him perform for hours while at the same time playing blindfold chess with someone of those present. I knew Rynd well and admired him." Byrne also meets with masters Richard Teichmann, Francis J. Lee, and Cecil B. de Vere.
Secondly, 'A Secret Chess Duel.' HHG suspects a certain opposition between Porterfield Rynd (who proclaimed to have played a chess game that ended with the Saavedra manoeuvre) and Saavedra, on that and various other occasions. " […] The duel they fought and fight, without knowing – without end."
Thirdly, 'The Road Back to H. Otten, New York ' describes in detail the origin and history of the famous H. Otten miniature study - White: Ke4, Pa4, g4, Black: Kf6, Bg7, White wins. The essay ends with the conclusion that "[..] many admirers would just as well burn all of their own work and turn back on the road that leads to 1891, - to H. Otten, New York."
73 pages. Hardback with a dust jacket. Rijswijk 2005. 50 copies. This copy is no. 23/50.
Condition. VG.
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