Monday 1 August 2016

Common books in uncommon dust jackets

I recently purchased a collection of books which included several fairly common books which are not often seen with their dust jackets. The examples below are listed on chronological order.

Mate in Two Moves by Brian Harley, first edition published by G. Bell & Sons Ltd., London, 1931. This becomes my third earliest book with a dust jacket, and incidentally, further to my article on early dust jackets on 3rd January this year I have not received any further information on dust jackets before 1930.  





Masters of the Chess Board by Richard Reti, first edition published by G.Bell and Sons Ltd., London, 1933.





















Chess and its Stars by Brian Harley, published by Whitehead & Miller, Ltd., Leeds, 1936. It is no wonder that this very plain dust jacket was usually discarded as the blue cloth covers with stars and chess pieces on the spine are more attractive.




The Basis of Combination in Chess by J. Du Mont, first edition published by George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., London, 1938. The dust jacket flaps include commendations by Dr. Alekhine and Dr. Tartakower.   






 


My Fifty Years of Chess by Frank J. Marshall, published by Chess Review, New York, 1942 but, according to Betts 29-73 reissued by Bell in 1947.  This Bell dust jacket now has the familiar logo printed all over whereas the earlier Bell dust jackets listed above do not have this logo.

























Page 1 of this book has a photograph of Marshall at the board "the wrong way round" 



The Russians Play Chess by Irving Chernev, first published by David Mckay Company, Philadelphia, 1947. Fifty master games from 1925 to 1946 selected and annotated by Irving Chernev.



R. P. Michell, A Master of British Chess by J. Du Mont, published by Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., London, 1947. This book is quite scarce with or without a dust jacket.





















Details of early dust jackets would be appreciated, perhaps we will move the boundary up to 1935.


                                         © Michael Clapham 2016

1 comment:

  1. The natural explanation for the picture is that it is mirror reversed, but if so it would seem Marshall was left-handed...

    ReplyDelete