The Real Paul Morphy: His Life and Chess Games by FIDE Master Charles Hertan relies on past Morphy scholarship, especially David Lawson’s Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess. Hertan promises three innovations in his book.
First, Hertan takes a fresh look at Paul Morphy’s games, thanks to Fritz 18. The Elo rating of Fritz 18 is 3300. Second, Hertan is “the first mental health professional since Reuben Fine to write a book with a central focus on Morphy.” Third, Hertan puts Morphy’s games chronologically alongside his life events. Because The Real Paul Morphy: His Life and Chess Games was published on August 29, 2024, it is eligible for a 2025 Chess Journalists of America Award.
Chess Games and Life Events
Hertan prefaces Morphy’s first encounter with Charles Henry Stanley with a description of Morphy’s 11-day journey from New Orleans to New York City. Morphy took a steamboat from his home in New Orleans to Cincinnati then a train from Ohio to New York.
Hertan speculates that Paul Morphy’s uncle Ernest Morphy, a strong chess player who lived in Moscow, OH, may have met the steamboat in Cincinnati. Maybe the two Morphy men analyzed chess games together before the younger Morphy boarded the train.
Paul Morphy arrived in New York City on October 4, 1857. The next day, at the New York Chess Club, Morphy won four casual games against the reigning (and first) U.S. Chess Champion Charles Henry Stanley.
Hertan presents one of those games with Fritz 18 analysis, which he curates and interprets for the average player. That annotated game is included with 18 sample pages from The Real Paul Morphy: His Life and Chess Games available at this link.
The boat-and-train journey from New Orleans to New York City is also part of the sample pages. The sample pages give a good sense of Hertan’s writing and annotating style.
A revelation
About the Morphy versus Stanley game referenced above, Hertan writes, “The best game was also a revelation in this sense: the seasoned veteran was theoretically undressed by the ‘tournament virgin.’”
It’s not clear to me why there are quote marks around “tournament virgin.” Is Hertan quoting another source? There aren’t any chapter footnotes or endnotes. The bibliography is not in alphabetical order by each author’s last name, as would be traditional. It is impossible to determine where Hertan is quoting from or, in this case, whether he is quoting at all. Perhaps he is providing a mental health professional’s perspective with this revelation.
Pride and Sorrow
Hertan acknowledges Edward Winter’s Chess Notes, for “new research and inspiration.” On one Chess Notes webpage, Winter shares which writers called Paul Morphy the “pride and sorrow” of American chess and why that was an apt description. From the primary sources quoted on Winter’s website, one learns that Paul Morphy was hailed as the strongest player in the world in 1859. That’s the “pride” part. The “sorrow” part is what happened later in Morphy’s life. He developed an aversion to chess around 1864 or 1865. About a decade later, he exhibited signs of mental illness. He died in 1884, at age 47. See Winter, E. (2024, April 10), The pride and sorrow of chess.
More Information
Information about Hertan and The Real Paul Morphy: His Life and Chess Games is available from several sources, including: A New In Chess webpage about the book; a podcast where Hertan is interviewed about Paul Morphy; and a print interview of Hertan by Mark Capron. Capron’s interview was originally published in the January 2025 issue of The Chess Journalist, the flagship journal of the Chess Journalists of America (CJA)
CJA Awards
Since The Real Paul Morphy: His Life and Chess Games was published in August of 2024, and Hertan is an American writer, Hertan’s is eligible for a 2025 CJA Award. Quoting from the CJA webpage about the 2025 CJA Awards:
The CJA Awards recognize the best in all facets of chess journalism, both print and online. The best chess articles, columns, photojournalism, layout, and online writing are honored within their respective categories. Recognized annually by their peers, the public, and members of CJA, the prestigious awards showcase American works published in English between June 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025. Awards [applications] may be submitted through June 22nd.
While not mentioned in the paragraph above, there are also CJA Awards for books in several categories (Best Book of the Year, Best Book – Instruction, Best Book – Self-Published, and Best Book – Other). Hertan’s The Real Paul Morphy: His Life and Chess Games is a contender for Best Book of the Year.
