A History of Chess: The Original 1913 Edition

An epic work that took over a decade to complete, A History of Chess, originally published in 1913, was a historic undertaking that shattered preconceptions about the game upon its release. Over a century later, Murray’s research, in which he argues that chess originated in India, is still widely accepted by most chess historians.

Undertaking such a pioneering task, the scope of which has never been attempted before or since, Murray was required to learn to read Arabic in order to decipher historical manuscripts on the game. Divided into sections, Murray’s study unravels the history of the game as it evolved from its Asiatic beginnings through the role chess played in Europe during the Middle Ages, up until the arrival of modern chess as we know it in the nineteenth century.

Accompanied by diagrams of transcribed important games, as well as some of the more famous historical chess pieces, such as the Lewis chessman, no single work on the game of chess has come close to touching Murray’s in breadth or significance.