A Treatise on the Games of Chess;

First edition. A handsome two-volume set of the first edition of Jacob Henry Sarratt's (d.1819) first chess manual, A Treatise on the Games of Chess.

Sarratt learned much from Verdoni, a disciple of the great French master François-André Danican Philidor who spent his final years in exile in London before his death in 1795. After Verdoni's death in 1804, Sarratt became the leading chess player in England — assuming the title 'Professor of Chess'. Under his influence the London Chess Club adopted the continental rule that a game ending in a stalemate was a draw, rather than a win for the player stalemated as hitherto in England (ODNB).

The book is dedicated to the Jewish merchant Abraham Samuda, with an important preface by the author giving a short history of the game from Damiano to the Dutch chess master Elias Stein.

First edition, 2 vols; 8vo (22 x 14 cm); with half-titles, final leaf of ads. to vol. 2; contemporary tree calf, gilt spine in compartments, contrasting black morocco title-pieces, joints cracked but holding, minor staining to top for-edge margin of vol. 1, occasional offsetting; xxxi, [1], 271, [1]; [4], 349, [3]pp.

Simpson p.36.