Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess
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Frère, Thomas. Morphy’s Games of Chess. New York: Robert M. De Witt, 1859.
Gottschall, H. von. Adolf Anderssen. Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1912.
Jones, Ernest. Essays in Applied Psychoanalysis, vol. 1. London: Hogarth Press, 1951.
Keyes, Frances P. The Chess Players. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1960.
Lange, Dr. Max. Paul Morphy, Skizze aus der Schachwelt. Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1859.
________. Paul Morphy, Skizze aus der Schachwelt. Zweiter Theil. Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1859.
________. Paul Morphy, Skizze aus der Schachwelt. Zweiter Theil. Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1881.
________. Paul Morphy, Sein Leben und Schaffen. Dritte auf lage. Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1894.
Lowenthal, J. Morphy’s Games. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1859.
________. Morphy’s Games of Chess. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1860.
Maróczy, Géza. Paul Morphy. Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1909.
________. Paul Morphy. Zweite auf lage. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1925.
Morphy-Voiter, Regina. Life of Paul Morphy in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans and Abroad. New Orleans: privately printed, 1926.
New York Daily News. Testimonials to Paul Morphy. New York: J. W. Bell, 1859.
Ovadija, J. M. Brilliant Combinations of Paul Morphy. Beograd, 1925.
Petrovic, S. Morphy. Zagreb: Sahooska Naklada, 1971.
Prèti, Jean. Choix des Parties Jouées par Paul Morphy. Paris: J. Prèti, 1859.
Rask, Bertil. Paul Morphy. Stockholm: F. Englunds Forlag, 1915.
Sanz, Jose. Morphy La estrella fugaz del ajedrez. Madrid: R. Aguilera, ca., 1950.
Sergeant, P. W. Morphy’s Games of Chess. London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., 1916.
________. Morphy Gleanings. London: Printing-Craft Ltd., 1932.
Smyth, A. H. The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. 10 vols. New York: Macmillan Co., 1905–7.
Stanley, C. H. Paul Morphy’s Match Games. New York: Robert M. De Witt, 1859.
Tchelebi, E. J. Le Secret de Morphy. Limoges: Touron & Fils, 1960.
Vasquez, A. C. La Odisea de Pablo Morphy. Havana: La Propaganda Litoraria, 1893.
Zagoryansky, E. Paul Morphy, a Tale. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962.
Part Two
Conway, Moncure D. Autobiography. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Miff lin & Co., 1904.
Devens, R. M. Our First Century. Springfield, Mass.: G. A. Nichols & Co., 1877.
Drawing Room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages. 1859 Second Series. London, 1859.
Dufresne, Jean. Anthology der Sachachaufgaben. Berlin: Louis Gerschel, 1864.
Fine, Dr. Reuben. The Psychology of the Chess Player. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
Fiske, D. W. Chess Tales & Chess Miscellanies. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912.
Frère, Thomas. Address on the Portrait of Paul Morphy. New York: Manhattan Chess Club, 1884.
Gilberg, C. A. Fifth American Chess Congress. New York: Brentano’s Literary Emporium, 1881.
Gutmayer, F. Der Weg zur Meisterschaft. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1919.
Kenny, M., S. J. The Torch on the Hill. New York: The American Press, 1931.
Linder, I. M. A. D. Petroff. (Russian) Moscow, 1952.
Locket, A. M. Chess Players of New Orleans. New Orleans: privately printed, 1935.
MacDonnell, G. A. Chess Life-Pictures. London: Kelly & Co., 1883
Maróczy, Géza. Paul Morphy. (Russian translation) Leningrad, 1929.
Prèti, Jean. Paul Morphy, Selected Games. (Russian translation) St. Petersburg, 1884.
Rand, Clayton. Stars in Their Eyes. Gulfport, Miss.: The Dixie Press, 1953.
Reichhelm, G. C. Chess in Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Billstein & Son Co., 1898.
Reinfeld, Fred. The Human Side of Chess. New York: Pelllegrini & Cudahy, 1952.
________. Great Games by Chess Prodigies. New York: Macmillan Co., 1967.
Staunton, H. The Chess Tournament. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852.
________. Chess Praxis. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1860.
Steinitz, W. Steinitz and Zukertort Match Programme. W. Steinitz, 1886.
________. The Modern Chess Instructor. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889.
Usigli, E. C. Degli Scacchi: Miscellanea sal giuoco. Napoli: E. C. Usigli, 1861.
Part Three
Buck, C. A. Paul Morphy. His Later Life. Newport, Ky.: Will H. Lyons, 1902.
Coria, V. F., and Palau, L. Pablo Morphy. Buenos Aires: Sopena Argentina, 1955.
Cunnington, E.C. Half Hours with Morphy. 3rd ed. London: George Rutledge & Sons, 1902.
Harrison, Mrs. Burton. Recollections Grave and Gay. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911.
Hayden, Bruce. Cabbage Heads and Chess Kings. London: Arco Publications, 1960.
Horberg, B., and Westberg, J. Paul Morphy. Stockholm: Bokforlaget Forum, 1961.
Horowitz, Al. The World Chess Championship, A History. New York: Macmillan Co., 1973.
King, Grace E. New Orleans, the Place and the People. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1895.
Morphy, L. A. Stray Leaves. New Orleans: Louisiana Printing Co., 1925.
Orsini, E. I Finali. Livorno-Pisa: G. Meucci, 1879.
Putnam, George H. Memories of a Publisher. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915.
Reid, Whitelaw. After the War: A Southern Tour. New York: Moore, Wilstoch & Baldwin, 1866.
Sandoval, A. Medias Horas con Morphy. Mexico: A. Sandoval, 1917.
Selkirk, G. H. Book of Chess. London: Houlston & Sons, 1868.
Sergeant, P. W. A Century of British Chess. Philadelphia: David McKay Co., 1934.
Timme, G. Een Gevecht, Rooduiden en Pionniers. Duurstede: J. G. Andriessen, 1860.
White, H. S. Willard Fiske: Life and Correspondence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1925.
________. Memorials of Willard Fiske. 3 vols. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1922.
Wildhagen, E. Morphy and Paulsen. Hamburg: E. Wildhagen, 1967.
Part Four
While most of the magazines of Morphy’s time and later have been researched, the following have been of special value:
American Chess Bulletin
American Chess Magazine
Brentano’s Chess Monthly
British Chess Magazine
Brooklyn Chess Chronicle
Chess Life
Chess Monthly (Morphy and Fiske, Editors)
Chess Monthly (Hoffer and Zukertort, Editors) Chess Player’s Chronicle
Chess Record
Good Companion Chess Magazine
Harvard Graduates Magazine
International Chess Magazine
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis
Psychoanalysis Journal (number 3)
La Régence
Schachzeitung
Shakhmaty Listok
Sissa
“64”
Part Five
The following is a list of the newspapers—daily and weekly—most frequently consulted:
New Orleans Sunday Delta
New Orleans Picayune
New Orleans Times-Democrat
New York Clipper
New York Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
New York Porter’s Spirit of the Times
New York Wilkes’ Spirit of the Times
New York Saturday Press
New York Herald
New York Express
New York Tribune
New York Times
New York Ledger
New York Turf, Field and Farm
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
Boston Journal
Quincy Whig
London Field
Bell’s Life in London
Illustrated London News
London Era
EDITOR’S SELECTED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
This brief bibliography contains a selection of work chronicling or critiquing the life and work of Paul Morphy since David Law
son’s biography appeared in 1976. It does not include the myriad comparisons to the late Bobby Fischer (1943–2008), whose paranoia, anti-Semitism, and increasingly bizarre behavior from the early 1970s until his death gave credence to Luzhinesque descriptions of chess-player behavior. Charles Krauthammer’s 2005 “Did Chess Make Him Crazy?” provides a convenient example of such coverage. “Fischer is the poster boy for the mad chess genius,” wrote Krauthammer, “a species with a pedigree going back at least to Paul Morphy, who after his triumphal 1858–59 tour of Europe returned to the U.S., abruptly quit the game and is said to have wandered the streets of New Orleans talking to himself.” Krauthammer—like many others—uses Morphy as a tertiary analogy, a foil against which Fischer can be judged. Such instances only intensified after Fischer’s death on January 17, 2008.Unlike Lawson’s treatment, however, similar mentions never surpass such mundane statements. They serve as quick examples rather than points of significant analysis. For further examples of such comparisons, see any global newspaper dated January 18, 2008.
The bibliography will also ignore Morphy sources published prior to 1976 that went uncited by Lawson, assuming that the breadth of Lawson’s research trumped their ability to provide any significant new information. For example, Charles Davy’s 1965 Words in the Mind includes an appendix describing the Morphy tragedy as a response to pattern recognition in continual chess play—the prototype Luzhin analysis. But Davy’s is a work of poetic analysis, not chess biography, and therefore provides no revelatory information to supplement his mundane appended thesis.
Finally, the bibliography will also omit works dedicated to game analysis, instead keeping its focus on biography. Books such as Chris Ward’s 1997 The Genius of Paul Morphy are thus excluded. Thus what follows is brief selection of post-1976 Morphy books and articles that treat the biographical subject in more than a passing, ancillary manner.
Books
Beim, Valeri. Paul Morphy: A Modern Perspective. Milford, CT: Russell Enterprises, 2005.
Beim’s work is largely a work detailing Morphy’s games, and the “modern perspective” of the title refers to chess analysis. The work does contain a substantial biographical section, but it provides little in the way of new analysis of Morphy’s life.
Dizikes, John. Sportsmen and Gamesmen. Boston: Houghton Miff lin, 1981.
Dizikes places Morphy’s 1858 European tour in the context of mid-nineteenth century American challenges to British sports superiority. It accompanies accounts of the 1860 John C. Heenan–Tom Sayres boxing match, the 1851 yacht race featuring the boat “America,” and a series of mid-1850s horse races.
Friedrich, Otto. Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations. New York: Random House, 1989.
Friedrich includes a brief three-page account of Morphy, in aid of contextualizing the musical mind of composer Glenn Gould. The account provides no new revelations about Morphy, but does demonstrate Morphy’s invocation as a comparative model for a non-chess player.
Hillyer, Martin Frere. Thomas Frere and the Brotherhood of Chess: A History of 19th Century Chess In New York City. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006.
Hillyer’s work chronicles the evolution of chess in New York during the nineteenth century, viewed through the lens of chess author Thomas Frere. He traces the development of chess into a public phenomenon, particularly in relation to other available board games in the first half of the century. This discussion leads to a discussion of the First American Chess Congress and Morphy’s role in the growing popularity of the game. Hillyer then continues by chronicling the rest of the century. In this account, Morphy’s success (and resulting celebrity) plays a pivotal role in the preeminent rise of New York chess.
Shenk, David. The Immortal Game: A History of Chess. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
Shenk’s history includes a chapter titled “Into Its Vertiginous Depths: Chess and the Shattered Mind,” which chronicles chess manias through history. He contextualizes Morphy’s illness not as a unique devolution, but rather one in a long series of chess-related mental disorders, from Robert Burton’s 1621 exhortation that chess “is a game too troublesome for some men’s brains,” to representations of chess-related mental problems in the television show Seinfeld. He also includes a cogent summary of the psychological theories attempting to explain the phenomenon.
Shibut, Macon. Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory. New York: Dover Books, 1992.
While Shibut’s book is mostly a work of chess analysis, it merits a place here for its cogent writing on Morphy’s pension for early development of pieces, finding his place amongst Anderssen, Steinitz, and others. This sort of comparative approach leads necessarily to biographical discussion of both Morphy and his chess age, demonstrating the transformation of chess thinking after Morphy’s aggressive appearance.
Winter, E. G. World Chess Champions. London: Pergamon Press, 1981.
The book includes a chapter on Paul Morphy written by Lawson. Though it treats its subject in considerable depth, the article is essentially a condensed version of Lawson’s book-length treatment.
Articles
“American Chess Prodigy of the 1850s.” American History Illustrated 22 (March 1987): 50-51.
The article presents a brief and ultimately elementary biography of Morphy, emphasizing his early success, his world championship, and his status as a lawyer.
Beegan, Gerry. “The Mechanization of the Image: Facsimile, Photography, and Frag-mentation in Nineteenth-Century Wood Engraving.” Journal of Design History 8 (No. 4 1995): 257–274.
Beegan analyzes woodcuts by the European Dalziel Brothers, featuring Morphy and other chess players on his 1858 trip to Europe. Here Morphy’s image, rather than his game or other constituent elements of his biography, is analyzed.
Bisguier, Arthur. “Morphy Versus Fischer: The Inevitable Comparison.” Chess Life 42 (September 1987): 32–35.
Bisguier compares the talents of Morphy and Fischer, evaluating their game play in relation to their childhood potential, their study of the game, and their different eras and historical contexts. Interestingly, he sublimates the discussion of their mental problems. “Although only time will tell with Fischer, one can argue that he is destined for the telling appellation applied to Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess. Still, so what?” Bisguier sticks to an evaluation of their play, eventually concluding that a match between the two would end in a draw.
Caverlee, William. “The Unenthusiastic Chess Champion of the World.” Oxford American (The Sports Issue 2007): 70–71.
Caverlee rehearses the general Morphy biography, arguing that the chess champion remains an enigmatic figure. He cites Lawson’s work as being the most complete available source, but laments that Lawson “cannot quite trace a satisfying outline of the man” through “424 slow-moving pages.”
Hambrick, Keith S. “Morphy, Paul Charles.” In Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, ed.
Glenn R. Conrad (New Orleans: Louisiana Historical Association, 1988), I:583. Brief biographical entry based on secondary sources, clearly dependent upon Lawson’s text.
Elley, Frank. “America Remembers Paul Morphy.” Chess Life 39 (June 1984): 19–22.
Elley’s account is sourced entirely with secondary material and even takes as its main source an early article from Lawson, “The Life of Paul Morphy,” originally published in Chessworld magazine. Interestingly, Elley does not use Lawson’s monograph, instead turning readers looking for a fuller biography to Lawson’s Morphy chapter in E. G. Winter’s 1981 World Chess Champions.
Ewart, Bradley. “The Devil and Paul Morphy.” Chess Life 39 (June 1984): 23–25.
Ewart’s article provides an extended rumination on Morphy’s attempt to replay the match between the Devil and a young man, presented on a Richmond wall. The story itself is recounted in Lawson’s text, whereby a traveling Morphy (in Richmond during the Civil War, ostensibly as a service to P.G.T. Beauregard) sees an allegorical picture and wows an audience by playing the position successfully. The grea
t difficulty in validating the tale, notes Ewart, is the representative nature of each piece, and the possible moves that could be derived from different interpretations that might allow for a victory. There is more than one interpretation, as might be imagined, and Ewart examines their viability and uses his examination to speculate about the workings of that specific Morphy episode.
Glickman, Mark E. “Parameter Estimation in Large Dynamic Paired Comparison Experiments.” Applied Statistics 48 (No. 3 1999): 377–394.
Glickman uses the determination of chess greatness through statistical analysis of select data sets as an example of parameter estimation in large dynamic paired comparison experiments. Lasker, Capablanca, Fischer, Alekhine, and Kasparov comprise the top five according to peak posterior mean strength. Morphy’s place on the list varies by analyst, as fewer games hurt his evaluation on one list. One study places him at the eighth position, another at twenty-seven.
Hoffman, Paul. “A Chess Player Realizes the Game Controls His Life.” Smithsonian 18 (July 1987): 1129–135.
Hoffman uses Morphy’s mental illness—in particular his paranoia about being poisoned—to discuss contemporary chess manias in players like Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. The article emphasizes the 1978 world championship between Karpov and Korchnoi, evaluating their attempts to unnerve one another off the chessboard.
Kurtz, Michael L. “Paul Morphy: Louisiana’s Chess Champion.” Louisiana History 34 (Spring 1993): 175–199.
Kurtz provides a general overview of Morphy’s life, with particular reference to his time in Louisiana. Though the article appears in a scholarly journal, it provides little new information and is heavily dependent upon Lawson’s work and sources. Kurtz does spend more time on Morphy’s Louisiana exploits, entering into more detail about his game with Winfield Scott, for example. “Flustered by the two defeats,” he notes, “Scott rose from the table and indignantly left the room without even congratulating the child.” Such intimate nuance does provide a level of personal understanding largely unavailable in a five-hundred page work.