The 1000 best short games of chess: A trasury of masterpiece in miniature [One thousand best short games of chess]

New York : Simon and Schuster, Fireside, 1955, 1955. Book. Very Good. Soft cover. [1st editoin], 10th printing ; 563 pages illustrations 22 cm ; LCCN: 55-5949 ; LC: GV1452; Dewey: 794.1 ; ISBN: 0671538012 ((pbk.)); 9780671538019 ((pbk.)) LCCN: 55-5949 ; OCLC: 55893364 ; pictorial black, lavender, gold stiff paper wrappers ; cover illustration by Seltzer ; "Chess brevities have always excercised a strange fascination for lovers of the royal game. Here, each introduced with a brief, pungent or witty commentary, are 1000 of the sweetest suger-coated pills in all chess literature. For the chess scholar, there is the delight of savoring the finest short games from the vast storehouse of chess history. For most of us, there is the surprise and satisfaction of discovering that even the greatest masters have suffered the ignominy of a quick knockout: Morphy mated in 12 moves, Capablanca in 13, and the great Emanuel Lasker in 14!. Irving Chernev has replayed nearly every game of chess on record. He is known as the "Believe it or not" man of chess." --cover; "Chernev was a chess player and prolific Russian-American chess author. He was born in Pryluky in the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine)[1] and emigrated to the United States in 1920. Chernev was a national master strength player, and was obsessed with chess. He wrote that he "probably read more about chess, and played more games than any man in history."--Wikipedia ; "Chernev's output - clear, humorous and easy-going - gave the impression of effortlessness, but much industry lay behind it all."--Edward Winter ; store stamp on inside front cover ; corner-clipped front endpaper ; else VG.