Benjamin Franklin | Chess Made Easy, Philadelphia, 1802, the earliest recorded chess book printed in America

Benjamin Franklin

Chess made easy. New and comprehensive rules for playing the game of chess. Philadelphia: James Humphrey, 1802

32mo (137 x 81 mm), engraved frontispiece of a chessboard, publisher's advertisements (including an advertisement for Lyrical Ballads), contemporary calf boards, spine gilt with red morocco label, dampstaining throughout, tears to endleaves, joints detached

THE EARLIEST RECORDED CHESS BOOK PRINTED IN AMERICA.

"The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement... For life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it."

The American Founding Father and polymath Benjamin Franklin was a lifelong avid chess player, and indeed is believed to have been among the very first Americans to play the game. Chess Made Easy features his important essay "The Morals of Chess", first published in the Columbian Magazine in December 1786, in which Franklin outlines the history of the game and draws sustained comparisons between the art of chess and good conduct. According to Franklin, chess hones the player's faculties of foresight, circumspection, caution, and perseverance. The present first American edition of Chess Made Easy followed the 1797 London edition (for which see previous lot).

For an autograph letter signed by Franklin, see lot 100.