------
About 1380.
Problem II. by 'ALI SHATRANJ.
Black
---r---r
ppq---R-
b--bkp-p
--------
--PP----
PP-B-Q--
--K---PP
--B-----
White
White to play and mate in eight moves.
CHESS HISTORY AND REMINISCENCES
CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF CHESS
A not unfair criterion is afforded of the long prevailing and
continued misconception as to the origin of chess, by the lack of
knowledge regarding early records as to its history exhibited in
the literature of last century, and the press and magazine articles
of this even to the present year. We refer not to lines of poets
such as Pope, Dryden and others, with whom the ancient order of
fiction is permissible, or to writers of previous periods, from
Aben Ezra to Ruy Lopez, Chaucer and Lydgate, or Caxton and
Barbiere, but to presumably studied and special articles, such
as those given in Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences and in
Encyclopaedias. The great work of 1727 dedicated to the King--
which claimed to embody a reasonable and fair account--and even
the best knowledge on all subjects referred to in it; contains an
article on chess of some dimensions, which may well be taken as
an example of the average ignorance of the knowledge of
information existing at the time.
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