A History of Chess (Including Wonderful Chess Ephemera) by H.J.R. Murray - 1913

London: Oxford University Press, 1913. Decorative Cloth. Very Good +. A very solid copy of the 1913 1st edition of H.J.R. Murray's sweeping history of the greatest board game of all. Tight and VG+ in its navy-blue cloth, with crisp, unrubbed gilt-design and titling along the frpnt panel and spine respectively. Offsetting to the endpapers, handsome bookplate at the front pastedown, otherwise clean as could be internally, with no writing or markings of any kind to the text. Thick quarto, top-edge gilt, 900 pgs. all told. A scholarly, early attempt to get a handle on the extraordinarily rich histoy of the game, from its vague Indian ancestry of the 5th-6th centuries A.D. up thru the book's publication at the beginning of the 20th century. This copy also includes an uncommon piece of chess ephemera, an issue of a 1924 Viennese chess newspaper advertising the sale of recently out-of-print chess titles. The fragile single sheet is light blue-green, is printed on both sides and is now housed in archival plastic.