PHILIDOR in AUSTRALIA & AMERICA. Chapter 1 - Philidor’s games in his 1749 book-are they real? p. 4 Chapter 2 - Von der Lasa on the Games in Philidor’s 1749 book. p. 11 Chapter 3 - Australian Research-Chess World & c p. 20 Chapter 4 - American Research- Chess Monthly & c p. 49 Chapter 5 - Bibliography of Philidor’s books from the US Chess Monthly. p. 60 Continuation of American Research p. 67 Chapter 6 - Philidor’s Games from OECG & Boffa p. 98 Part 2 Chapter 7 - Francois Andre Danican Philidor Websites p. 102 Chapter 8 - Philidor’s Social Network and Timeline and Musical works p. 120 Chapter 9 - Philidor in Historical Fiction p. 146. Chapter 10- When did Philidor go to Holland and England? p. 160 Chapter 11- A Chess Champion Whose Operas Pleased a King. p. 162 Chapter 12- Eighteenth Century extracts from Fiske’s 1859 book. p. 167 Chapter 13- Philidor The Master of Masters by Solomon Hecht. p. 178+ ‘The Gambit’ Sept. 1928 (Hecht from Ray Kuzanek) The Mystery of Philidor’s Declaration that the Pawns are The Soul of Chess. (Hecht ‘The Gambit’ Sept. 1930) p. 233+ Chapter 14- Lovers of Philidor. p. 198 Chapter 15- Who was Michael Sedaine? p. 200 Chapter 16- Philidor and Vaucanson p. 201 Chapter 17- Review of Sergio Boffa’s Philidor book (ca 2010) p. 202 Chapter 18- Criticism of Philidor by Ercole del Rio + Ponziani mini bio. p.204 Chapter 19- The Gainsborough Philidor? p.209 Chapter 20- Captain Smith – Philidor – Captain Smith p.210 1 PREFACE When David Lovejoy wrote to me about a novel on Philidor as his possible next project and would I help with research, I agreed. This was an area I had never studied because it was in the chess-play zone. My interests are chess history and problems. That was in September 2016 and I commenced looking for Philidor in my library and sent them to David. Here is a list:- 1. The amazing articles in BCM June,July & August of 2016 by Gordon Cadden. 2. The 1961 BCM articles by C.M.Carroll an American. 3.The 1893 and 1926 BCM articles. The first by ‘A.C.’ (possibly Arthur Curnock 1867-1935), the second by John Keeble (1855-1939). The latter was to celebrate the 200th birthday of Philidor. 4. Traite Elementaire Du Jeu Des Echecs by Count De Basterot 1863 p.59/62 (French) 5.The Chess Player’s Magazine June 1867 p.162/171 6. BCM 1924 p.409 & 506 7. BCM 1926 p.125, 434/5/6* & 685 (* See p.46 later for this by John Keeble) 8.The History of Chess by Robert Lambe 1764 ( see p.15) 9.Our Folder Magazine. This publication by the Good Companion Chess Problem Club in the 1920’s was original in that many of the members did research on Philidor’s musical career which appeared later in the magazine.(Vol.X No.2 p.26/30 & 44/48; No.5 p.81/89 & 107/108; No.8 p.137/145 & 168/171. May 1922 p.185/193 & 211/212 & 208) 10.Chess Man v Machine by Bradley Ewart 1982. As a tour de force on automata it stands on its own. Philidor played The Turk in Paris in 1783. 11.The History of Chess in 50 Moves by Bill Price 2015. Great sketches & a fine article. 12.The Chess Kings Vol.1 by Calvin Olson 2006 only 2 pages but good. 13. Geschichte des Schachs Silberman and Unzicker 1975 a long article on P.(German) 15. A Philidor bio in the American Chess Monthly from Oct 1857 to Feb 1858 by Allen. An excellent Bibliography. Plus it is a forerunner to his 1863 book. A further edition to the book appeared in Chess World (UK) in a series. (1867) 16. Twiss had excellent one on one talks with P and included it in ‘Chess’ Vol.1 p.149/171 & 2 1787/9 p.215/218 and his Miscellanies 1805 Vol.2 p.105/114. 17. Die Austellung by Harald Ballo 2005. A fine article on P. (German) 18. Philidor and the Modern Masters in A History of Chess 1913 by H.J.R.Murray 19.Review of Allen by John Hilbert in Quarterly of Chess History 6/2000. 20.Schach Eine Kulturgeschichte 1986 by Joachim Petzold.(German) Good article. 21.BCM 1895 by J.A. Leon (1861-1934) Philidor and Stamma 22.Giambatista Lolli’s work of 1763 contains a critique of Philidor’s methods. 23.Writings in Chess History 2012 p.505/511 by John Hilbert 24.Cecil Purdy in 1956 Chess World p.142+ 25. Manual of Chess by E.Lasker p.180+ 26. Charles Tomlinson in Amusements in Chess 1845. (This was the last sent.) 27. The Kings of Chess p.13-23 by William Hartston 1985. 28. The Eight (1988) by Katherine Neville. 2 David decided to leave his Philidor novel in abeyance but I was interested by then as there was a lot of material, some duplicated, but a lot, such as the above list, that needed to be examined and then placed on a free website for the use of others. For a start any comparison between the two Chess Knights of the Road, Philidor and Morphy must include Philidor’s travels over a 9 year period. Morphy was away about 9 months. Philidor made a massive number of contacts/friends. Morphy was wealthier and though he socialised and liked Parisian society, he did not make any close friends as Philidor did for he didn’t stay long enough. The two had different personalities. Morphy used chess as a mental exercise to prove his powers and he made little money from it. The prophetic remarks he made on leaving England are very revealing. Then he failed at the law. It is true that the American Civil war damaged Morphy but Philidor was successful at both chess and music and must have seen a lot of war himself though he was not as affected as Morphy was. Philidor moved between chess and music easily whereas Morphy never seemed to be able to fend off those who said that his chess skills precluded any skills at law. And there are many wonderful websites:- Francois Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795). Just typing that name into Google opens one to the modern world. Before that were more books on the French chess player such as Philidor, Musician and Chess Player 1995 by Marcelle Benoit 1995 (Picard French)) and H.W. Fink’s 1994 book Koblenz by J.E. Dupont Philidor. I have not read them because I cannot. His descendants formed a group called the Society of Philidorian Studies.(lapsed 2007) The address was Sep 63, Bd Raspail 75006 Paris. And their website Res Musica-Aller+ Loin is very good. The first biographical book is G.A. Allen’s Life of Philidor, 1863. This has a supplement on Philidor’s chess strength by Tassilo von der Lasa, a 19th century grandmaster. The first copies of Allen’s book were printed on vellum. There was an earlier version in The American Chess Monthly 1857/8 and a later version in the English magazine Chess World 1867 where Allen corrected and added to his earlier work. In reading Allen’s 1863 work the Supplement by Baron Von der Lasa (1818-1899) took my interest as he claimed the 1749 games were ‘manufactured’ or ‘unreal’. This resulted in the following two articles Chapter 1 and 2. 3 CHAPTER 1 PHILIDOR’S GAMES IN HIS 1749 BOOK – ARE THEY REAL? The games in Philidor’s 1749 work are the backbone of this famous book. There are 9 games in the Games of Philidor’s Section in Pratt’s 1804 edition :-4 are King Pawn Openings, 3 are Philidor’s Gambits, 1 is a Cunningham’s Gambit and the final game is a Queen’s Gambit or Gambit of Aleppo. There are many other games, back games and supplements in this book but the 9 games are the only ones that could be classed as genuine Philidor games. I do not have a copy of the 18th century editions. But are they real games? The Games collections of Walker 1844 and Oxford Companion of Chess Games 1981 contain 62 games and 78 respectively with the earliest games from 1780- 1795. Any games in a 1749 work are suspect or they would have been included long ago if genuine. Why weren’t they? Von der Lasa wrote in his Supplement to Allen’s 1863 book on p.124:-The Games, with the instructive Notes appended to them, still form the staple of the work. These constitute the exposition of a peculiar system, the characteristic features of which, contrasted with those of the Italian school, I have endeavoured to give, in an essay of some length, contributed to the Berlin Schachzeitung for 1847 and 1848. It can hardly be possible, that these model games ever occurred in actual play: they were, undoubtedly, composed by Philidor himself for his work….. Von der Lasa was an acknowledged chess grandmaster of the era. In 1895 the British chess historian J.A. Leon wrote a two part article on Philidor in his series The Old Masters of Modern Chess and claimed the games did NOT occur in actual play (p.450+ Nov. & Dec 1895 BCM) and thus were manufactured and composed by Philidor himself for his book. H.J.R. Murray in A History of Chess 1913 wrote a very fine article on Philidor (p.861-870) of which the relevant paragraph on p.867 was:-And the whole of this system was unfolded in four games and ten back games or variations, all carried, if not to the actual mate, at least to a position in which the win was evident, and all skilfully composed in such a way that the principles which they were designed to teach were displayed to the best advantage….