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This book is the result of an inquiry into the creation and loss of a whimsical chess magazine started by two schoolboys in Charleston in the wake of Morphy’s return, in the spring of 1859, from his triumphal tour in Europe. Only two issues appeared and were sold and spread in a small edition. When many years later, some chess book collectors became interested and ardently searched and advertised for copies 'here, there and everywhere,' just one copy of the two installments could be located. They had come into the possession of Tassilo von der Lasa via W.H. Russ and Dr. Robert Franz. In 1885, von der Lasa lent the two installments to John Griswold White to run off a number of copies. White returned a number of the copies he had made to von der Lasa but the originals were left out. White and the postal offices on both ends searched for those in vain.

White wrote to von der Lasa that he had 22 copies struck off (heliogravures), but later, in 1898, he mentioned in an article in the American Chess Magazine, "'some fifty or sixty." To this day, seven copies have been located. This booklet reports only six, the seventh is in the collection of David DeLucia. The copy, in the KB (the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in the Hague), of the two issues bound together, is fully reprinted in facsimile.

Maastricht 2021. 68 pages.

Condition: VG. Like new. Copy no 16/29. From David DeLucia's chess library.

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