Emanuel Lasker: The Life of a Chess Master

Author: Hannak, Jacques (1892-1973)Year: 1959Publisher: Andre Deutsch LtdPlace: LondonDescription:320 pages with diagrams and tables. Octavo (8 1/2" x 6 3/4") bound in red cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Foreword by Albert Einstein. Translated by Heinrich Fraenkel. (Betts: 29-65) First English edition. First published as Biographie eines Schachweltmeisters Berlin-Frohnau (1952).Most people agree that Emanuel Lasker was the greatest chess master of all time, but he was more than that. He hated chess as much as he loved it, using it chiefly as a means of livelihood while he devoted himself to problems of philosophy and mathematics. In the latter field he could hold his own with men such as Einstein who honored this book with a foreword out of respect for a fellow scientist and affection for a remarkable man. There is much in Lasker's story to interest even readers who care little for the game that made him famous, but it is, of course, the chess fraternity which will find it most fas