by David Lawson
McCrary, Robert. “Paul Morphy: The Man, the Myth, and the Misconceptions.” Chess Life 42 (September 1987): 36–37.
“In honor of the 150th anniversary of Paul Morphy’s birth in 1837,” writes Robert McCrary, “Chess Life debunks several misconceptions without destroying the magic surrounding that memorable master, Paul Morphy.” Still, McCrary’s lone secondary source is Lawson’s book, and the article simply repeats truisms known to any reader of Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess.
Philipson, Robert. “Chess and Sex in Le Devoir Du Violence.” Callaloo 38 (Winter 1989): 216–232.
Philipson critiques the work of Ernest Jones as “predictably Oedipal” in its focus on father murder and queenly power. Though Philipson’s analysis is brief, it clearly finds Jones’s evaluation of Morphy’s trauma overly simplistic, imprisoned by the dominant Freudian theory of the early century.
Soltis, Andy, and Gene McCormick. “Chess Life: The Morphy Defense.” Chess Life 39 (August 1984): 26–27.
Soltis and McCormick evaluate Morphy’s relationship with Charles Henry Stanley and Eugène Rousseau in an effort to discover the actual genesis of the opening position known as “the Morphy defense.” They conclude that the move wasn’t original to Morphy.
Torchia, Robert Wilson. “The Chess Players by Thomas Eakins.” Winterthur Portfolio 26 (Winter 1991): 267–276.
Torchia uses the work of Thomas Eakins to trace a brief history of representations of chess in art, featuring Winslow Homer’s sketch of Paul Morphy. He describes the torrent of celebration from the world of American letters following Morphy’s 1859 return from Europe, all the while providing an adequate history of Morphy’s life in chess.
Williams, David R. “Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess.” Library Journal, 1 August 1976, 1653.
Williams writes a brief review of Lawson’s biography. It is very favorable, using for comparison Philip W. Sergeant’s Morphy’s Games of Chess, which emphasizes game play over biography.
Fiction
Sheola, Noah. Paul Morphy. 2006.
Sheola’s play debuted in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in November 2006. It chronicles the bulk of the Staunton controversy, with Morphy unsuccessfully hunting the presumed English chess champion. The play is unpublished.
Sitewell, Jason K. “What I Discovered About ‘Poop’ Glover.” Saturday Evening Post 248 (September 1976): 14–16, 26, 84–85.
Sitewell creates a fictional twelve-year-old chess prodigy, Paul Glover, named after Morphy and claiming to be his great grandson. The story posits that Glover’s great grandmother would bring Morphy his food and medication, whereby he fell in love with her. Her husband was killed in the Civil War, and yet she bore a child, Glover’s grandfather, who was particularly adept at chess.
Thomas Aiello is an assistant professor of history at Valdosta State University. He is the editor of Dan Burley’s Jive (Northern Illinois University Press, 2009) and the author of the forthcoming Bayou Classic: The Grambling-Southern Football Rivalry (LSU Press, 2010) and The Kings of Casino Park: Race and Race Baseball in the Lost Season of 1932 (University of Alabama Press, 2011).
