Memoirs of a Chessnut

Victor Keats, M. Phil. is a bibliophile of Hebrew and other antiquarian chess books, and curator of one of the world's foremost chess collections. He is an itinerant university lecturer on the subject of Hebrew literature and the history of chess. He is Research Fellow at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College, London, and also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has authored several scholarly works on chess: a three volume set - Chess, Jews and History (vol. I), Chess: Its Origin (vol. II), Chess Among the Jews (vol. III) ; Chess in Jewish History and Hebrew Literature; Chessmen for Collectors; and The Illustrated Guide to World Chess Sets. This is his story, an autobiography devoted to his chess-collecting years: how he caught 'the bug', descriptions of his collections, travels, writings, auctions, scholarship. It is illustrated with chess cartoons by artist John Mellor.