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Bird, H. E. (Henry Edward), 1830-1908

"Chess History and Reminiscences"

This error seems to have been
quoted from Staunton and Wormald's "Chess Theory and Practice."
A few more words about the problems at the end of the book and
we have done with the details. There are about a dozen compositions
mostly by high-class American authors, and some of them of very
good quality; but, unfortunately, Mr. Bird has omitted to indicate
their solutions. We must suppose this to be due to an oversight,
as he gives the key moves of the four problems by English composers.
The omission is deplorable, for many students would wish to
appreciate the author's idea, and the merits of the construction,
if they fail to solve the problem. To quote an instance from our
own experience; we could not find any solution to the problem on
page 224, which composition, we conclude, is either of the highest
order or suffers from the gravest of all faults, that of being
impossible. In either case we should have liked to examine the
solution.
Our judgment of the book, on the whole, is that it cannot be
ranked in the first class with the works of Heydebrand, Zukertort,
Staunton, Lowenthal, Neuman and Suhle, Lange, &c.


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