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The former Ken Whyld Association has since been renamed the Chess History and Literature Society. Its members meet regularly for exchange, most recently in Belfort, a magical place for bibliophiles and chess historians. The city library administers the 27,000 volumes chess library of the famous collector Dr Jean Mennerat (1917-2007). | Photo: From left to right: Clémence Tariol (curator) and a staff member, Dr Hans Ellinger (Germany), Henri Serruys (Belgium), Dr Jurgen Stigter (Netherlands), Jean-Olivier Leconte (France). ©Herbert Bastian

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the "old masters". Those who study the subject intensively, as Frank Hoffmeister does in his work "Chess Theory from Stamma to Steinitz, 1735-1894", will find that the ideas of the "old ones" are surprisingly young. Review and interview with the author.

Recently, the Emanuel Lasker Society and the Excelsior Verlag published the third and final volume of their huge biography of Emanuel Lasker, mathematician, philosopher, writer, and World Champion from 1894 to 1921. Richard Forster, Michael Negele and Raj Tischbierek edited the three volumes. Like its predecessors, the third sheds light on many aspects of Lasker's personality and his wide ranging intellectual interests, and it is a beautiful, carefully designed book well worth reading.