Chess Phenomenon Paul Morphy

Otto Dietze

Paul Charles Morphy - compared with famous contemporaries like Adolf Anderssen or Howard Staunton - belongs to the "enigmatic" personalities of chess history. Such a fate remains mostly reserved to those great players whose biography states, sooner or later: showed psychological abnormalities, isolated himself, became moody, a weirdo, a loner ..

In short - he was one of those who nourish and thus keep alive the folklore maintaining there's a fine line between genius and insanity.

However, it's not the aim of this book to illuminate the more or less obscure areas of Morphy's life, as it's not a psychological study, but a chess book. Thus, instead of a research of the soul, a search is to be conducted, a search for a reliable answer to the question as to what sort of chess player Morphy was.

The author is a chess historian whose main interest has always been this American "superstar" of the 19th century - rightly regarded as one of the "uncrowned world champions". He has selected and annotated 100 of Morphy's most instructive games and traced his life's journey in detail - from the discovery of the child prodigy to his early death.

The result is a very vivid insight into a highly interesting part of chess history, which has certainly not deserved to fall into oblivion.

Published 2016, softback, 149 pages.