WALTER PENN SHIPLEY: PHILADELPHIA’S FRIEND OF CHESS by John S. Hilbert is yet another example of why he is one of the world’s top chess researchers and historians and McFarland the preeminent publisher of books devoted to the lore of the game.

The subject of this book, Walter Penn Shipley (1860-1942), was a master strength player, chess columnist of the Philadelphia Inquirer for many years, and one of the founding members of the Franklin Chess Club, but it is his close friendships with World Champions Steinitz, Lasker and Capablanca that really make this book come alive -- that, and the fact that Hilbert was able to locate relatives of Shipley who very generously shared their recollections and archives.

Today, though it is home to the World Open and the Shahade clan, we don’t tend to think of Philadelphia as a major chess center. This was not the case during Shipley’s life. The city of brotherly love regularly hosted exhibitions by top players not to mention games from the Steinitz-Lasker World Championship match. Today it would be unthinkable for any city to expect its best players to match up with those of New York, but for much of Shipley’s life Philadelphia was up to the task. The Franklin Chess Club, which Shipley helped co-found in 1885, and which merged with its rival the Mercantile in 1955, is still going strong under the title Franklin Mercantile. It definitely has an argument to be considered the second oldest continuously operating chess club in the United States with the closing of the Manhattan in New York last year (the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco, which was founded in 1854, is the oldest).

WALTER PENN SHIPLEY: PHILADELPHIA’S FRIEND OF CHESS is more than a book on Shipley, it is also a book on chess in Philadelphia and the United States, particularly for the period from 1880 until the First World War. Famous Philadelphia names like Gustavus Reichhelm and Emil Kemeny receive in-depth treatment.

In addition to wealth of prose and games (several annotated by Swiss IM Richard Forster), there is also an outstanding selection of photos of Shipley, he and his family and a great one of him with Capablanca in front of the Union League Club in Philadelphia.

Anyone with an interest in American chess history will want to get this outstanding book.