Frederick Edge. Background Facts and Quotations_Edward Winter.pdf

edgeFrederick Edge – Background Facts and QuotationsEdward Winter(2000, updated in 2005)Paul MorphyGiven the interest in the relationship between Frederick Edge and Paul Morphy and, more generally, the Staunton-Morphy affair, an overview is offered here of historians’ previous efforts to set out the facts and analyse the issues and personalities involved. Included too are the fruits of our own researches in Chess Notes into Edge’s background, together with some suggestions for further reading. Edge wrote many non-chess books on British and American politics and history, of which the most readily available today is Slavery Doomed (originally published in London in 1860 but reprinted by the Negro Universities Press, New York, in 1969). His ter/extra/ (1 of 29)28/06/05 13:45:03edgeonly chess book, on Morphy, was published in two editions:lThe Exploits and Triumphs in Europe, of Paul Morphy, The Chess Champion by Paul Morphy’s late Secretary (New York, 1859), and lPaul Morphy The Chess Champion by An Englishman (London, 1859). ter/extra/ (2 of 29)28/06/05 13:45:03edgeThe US edition was reprinted in 1973 by Dover Publications, Inc. and by Moravian Chess in the Czech Republic circa 2001. In a brief feature on the book pages of the October 1974 CHESS, reference was made to the divergent texts, and David Lawson published a lengthy factual reply on pages 102-103 of the January 1975 issue. He also discussed the different editions in his subsequent biography of Morphy (see page 190), as well as in his six-page Introduction to the Dover reprint of Edge’s book, which also dealt with the relationship between Morphy and Edge. It began (page v):‘This book by Frederick Milne Edge gives us our closest personal look at Paul Morphy. No other contemporary could have provided more information, with the possible exception of Morphy’s lifelong friend Charles A. Maurian; but Maurian merely gave some interviews many years later, when the freshness of his contact had passed.