Dietze, O: Chess Phenomenon Paul Morphy

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.