Chess Players Handbook

"He achieved fame by winning a celebrated match against the French champion St Amant, gave his name to a set of chessmen that has become standard, edited the first English chess magazine and by his originality and enthusiasm brought about the first International Chess Tournament. This remarkable man was Howard Staunton, the only British chess master of whom it could be said that at one time he was the world's leading player." "In 1847 came Staunton's first and greatest work on chess, the Chess-Player's Handbook. It was at once an immense success and remained so throughout his lifetime and long after. In between the years 1847 and 1935 it was republished 21 times." Harry Golombek.

This is a good book on classical chessHoward Staunton was one of the best players Europe had to offer and here he first gives you on how to play teaches the game from the beginning and then goes into opening play.This book concentrates mostly on the opening He gives a brief history of each opening and then goes onto moves and then goes to variations and subvariatons and on and onHe even gives around 10 or more games for each opening and each variation and even explains onto what happens in the game It is quite interesting and develops your skill very as I dont play in USCF I cant give you my rating but it has effected my play a lotWarning:This book has descriptive notation (P-k4) so it might throw you off the trail for it did to me in first Butall in all it is a real good book and if it were to be in modern algebric notation then I would give it 5 stars