Lasker & His Contemporaries

Following the news of the tragic death of Bob Long from Davenport, Iowa, here is a brief overview of his series of books titled Lasker & His Contemporaries. 

Six issues were published between 1978 and 2011 with Long both editing and publishing the series as well as contributing many of the articles. Although originally planned to appear twice a year, it is difficult to describe this as a periodical, with up to 14 years between some issues and, indeed, Long did not regard this as a regular magazine and refused to take subscriptions. Andy Lusis agreed, entering these books in the Biographical Games Collections section (1218) of his Bibliography, however, this is listed in Di Felice's Chess Periodicals (1337).

Bob Long assembled an impressive line-up of contributors including Hugh Myers, Wolfgang Heidenfeld, Dale Brandreth, and C. J. S. Purdy; many historical articles were also included, some by Lasker himself.  John Hilbert took over as chief editor from issue 5 and contributed much of the material in issues 5 and 6.

The series was devoted to chess history and predominantly Emanuel Lasker and the chess scene from the 1880s to the 1940s. A few articles of a more recent nature were also included. The number of pages in each book increased in direct proportion to the length of time between issues.

Issue Number 1, 1978, 34 pages

Issue Number 2, 1979, 40 pages

Issue Number 3, 1980, 45 pages

Issue Number 4, 1983, 56 pages

Issue Number 5, 1997, 64 pages

Issue Number 6, 2011, 72 pages.

This series of books was very well produced on good quality paper, and the many interesting articles are frequently illustrated with photographs of the period.