Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership, by Edward Lasker (Gutenberg text).Chess: A Selection of Fifty Games, From Those Played by the Automaton Chess-Player, During Its Exhibition in London, in 1820 (London: W.Stubbs (multiple formats at Google US access only) by William Steinitz (page images at HathiTrust) The Book of the Sixth American Chess Congress: Containing the Games of the International Chess Tournament Held at New York in 1889 (c1891), ed.
1872), by American Chess Congress (page images at HathiTrust)
Early editions were small enough to fit in a pocket (the first edition was 190 pages), but later editions grew and the fifteenth and most recent version is 768 pages. MCO was popular with English-speaking players and has continued to be updated throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, with fifteen editions from 1911 through 2008. HistoryĪlthough Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels was more authoritative at the time MCO was first published, it was last published between 19, and was becoming outdated by the 1930s. Harry Golombek called it "the first scientific study of the openings in the twentieth century". The fifteenth edition was published in 2008. Modern Chess Openings (usually called MCO) is a reference book on chess openings, first published in 1911 by the British players Richard Clewin Griffith (1872–1955) and John Herbert White (1880–1920).