Chess Periodicals

This comprehensive reference work presents detailed bibliographical information about worldwide chess periodicals past to present. It contains 3,163 entries and many cross-references. Information for each entry includes year and country of publication, frequency, sponsors, publisher, editors, subject, language, alternate titles, mergers, continuations, and holdings in chess libraries. Includes an index of periodicals by country and a general index of periodical titles.

 A huge amount was published about chess in the United Kingdom before the First World War. The growing popularity of chess in Victorian Britain was reflected in an increasingly competitive market of books and periodicals aimed at players from beginner to expert. The author combines new information about the early history of the game with advice for researchers into chess history and traces the further development of chess literature well into the 20th century. Topics include today’s leading chess libraries and the use of digitized chess texts and research on the Web. Special attention is given to the columns that appeared in newspapers (national and provincial) and magazines from 1813 onwards. These articles, usually weekly, provide a wealth of information on early chess, much of which is not to be found elsewhere. The lengthy first appendix, an A to Z of almost 600 chess columns, constitutes a detailed research aid. Other appendices include corrections and supplements to standard works of reference on chess.

Every chess player wants to improve, but many, if not most, lack the tools or the discipline to study in a structured and effective way. With so much material on offer, the eternal question is: ‘How can I study chess without wasting my time and energy?’ Davorin Kuljasevic provides the full and ultimate answer, as he presents a structured study approach that has long-term improvement value. He explains how to study and what to study, offers specific advice for the various stages of the game and points out how to integrate all elements in an actionable study plan. How do you optimize your learning process? How do you develop good study habits and get rid of useless ones? What study resources are appropriate for players of different levels? Many self-improvement guides are essentially little more than a collection of exercises. Davorin Kuljasevic reflects on learning techniques and priorities in a fundamental way. And although this is not an exercise book, it is full of instructive examples looked at from unusual angles. To provide a solid self-study framework, Kuljasevic categorizes lots of important aspects of chess study in a guide that is rich in illustrative tables, figures and bullet points. Anyone, from casual player to chess professional, will take away a multitude of original learning methods and valuable practical improvement ideas.

In 1939 Frank Luther Mott received a Pulitzer Prize for Volumes II and III of his History of American Magazines. In 1958 he was awarded the Bancroft Prize for Volume IV. He was at work on Volume V of the projected six-volume history when he died in October 1964. He had, at that time, written the sketches of the twenty-one magazines that appear in this volume. These magazines flourished during the period 1905-1930, but their "biographies" are continued throughout their entire lifespan--in the case of the ten still published, to recent years. Mott's daughter, Mildred Mott Wedel, has prepared this volume for publication and provided notes on changes since her father's death. No one has attempted to write the general historical chapters the author provided in the earlier volumes but which were not yet written for this last volume. A delightful autobiographical essay by the author has been included, and there is a detailed cumulative index to the entire set of this monumental work. The period 1905-1930 witnessed the most flamboyant and fruitful literary activity that had yet occurred in America. In his sketches, Mott traces the editorial partnership of H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, first on The Smart Set and then in the pages of The American Mercury. He treats The New Republic, the liberal magazine founded in 1914 by Herbert Croly and Willard Straight; the conservative Freeman; and Better Homes and Gardens, the first magazine to achieve a circulation of one million "without the aid of fiction or fashions." Other giants of magazine history are here: we see "serious, shaggy...solid, pragmatic, self-contained" Henry Luce propel a national magazine called Time toward its remarkable prosperity. In addition to those already mentioned, the reader will find accounts of The Midland, The South Atlantic Quarterly, The Little Review, Poetry, The Fugitive, Everybody's, Appleton's Booklovers Magazine, Current History, Editor & Publisher, The Golden Book Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Hampton's Broadway Magazine, House Beautiful, Success, and The Yale Review.