author
Franklin K. (Franklin Knowles) Young
1857–1931
Best remembered for his unusual and ambitious chess books, this Boston writer tried to explain the game through the language of military strategy. His work has fascinated chess readers for generations, both for its originality and for its famously hard-to-follow style.
1 Audiobook
Chess Generalship, Vol. I. Grand Reconnaissance
by Franklin K. (Franklin Knowles) Young
About the author
Born in 1857, Franklin Knowles Young was an American chess player, writer, and inventor associated with Boston and the Boston Chess Club. Archival records at the University of Notre Dame describe him as a chess enthusiast who played, taught, and wrote about the game, while later chess historians note that he was active enough to be regarded as a notable New England player.
Young is chiefly remembered for a series of highly unconventional books that treated chess as a form of military science. Project Gutenberg lists Chess Generalship, Vol. I. Grand Reconnaissance, and other surviving records connect him with titles such as The Major Tactics of Chess and The Grand Tactics of Chess. His writing aimed at a grand, systematic theory of chess, which made it distinctive even when readers found it difficult.
He died in 1931. Although his books have often been discussed with a mix of admiration, curiosity, and amusement, they still hold a small but lasting place in chess history because no one else wrote about the game quite the way he did.