THOMAS FRÉRE and the BROTHERHOOD of CHESS
Author: Martin Frére Hillyer
211 pages (hardback)
$38.95
McFarland & Company, Inc. (2007)

When one looks back into the past of American chess events, Paul Morphy's emergence as a great player in New York, the founding of the Brooklyn and Manhattan chess clubs, and the organization and hosting of the first official World Championship (Steinitz-Zuckertort 1886) have to rank as key moments. What boggles the mind is that one individual played a key role in all of them, in a period stretching three decades. Add to it writing one of the first primers on chess in the New World (Frère's Chess Hand-book), codifying the rules for modern tournament play (Morphy played some of his games with Black moving first) and being a key figure behind the First American Chess Congress, and you have someone who truly deserves to be remembered. However, if you look in Hooper and Whyld's monumental THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CHESS you will not find an entry for Thomas Frère. Fortunately, he is now finally getting his due thanks to the publication of THOMAS FRÉRE and the BROTHERHOOD of CHESS by his kinsman Martin Frère Hillyer.
 
We can thank Kurt Landsberger, the great Steinitz historian, for encouraging Mr. Hillyer for writing this book that is more than just an examination of one man. Almost all the important events in American chess from the 1850s to 1890s are covered, particularly developments in New York City which are and remain the center of chess in this country. We can also thank the Hillyer family for keeping a diary going in their family for over 100 years(!). This diary introduced Martin Frère Hillyer to his great, great grandfather Thomas Frère.
 
Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess is a well-researched and well-written book. Interspersed with Hillyer's narrative are numerous reproductions of documents of the time, many games with contemporary annotations, a number of problems composed by Frère, and some truly amazing photographs. I was particularly struck with some of the images of the Manhattan Chess Club that Frère helped form in 1879. Unlike its younger cousin, the Marshall Chess Club, the Manhattan never owned its own building. This situation caused it to move many times until it closed its doors a few years ago. Looking at the rows of splendid chess tables, used by players like Steinitz and Lasker, one can only wonder what happened to them. Serving as Chess Director of the Mechanics' Institute Chess Club in San Francisco, which has continuously operated since 1854, I read the pages about the early history of the Manhattan Club with both fascination and sadness.
 
THOMAS FRÉRE and the BROTHERHOOD of CHESS is strongly recommended reading for those who have an interest in 19th century American chess.

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