Handbuch des Schachspiels

{{Short description|1843 chess book by Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa}}

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| image = File:Handbuch des Schachspiels.jpg

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| caption = Handbuch des Schachspiels (1858)

| author = {{plainlist|

• Paul Rudolf von Bilguer
• Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa}}

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| language = German

| subject = Chess

| publisher = Veit

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| pub_date = 1843

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Handbuch des Schachspiels (Handbook of Chess, often simply called the Handbuch) is a chess book, first published in 1843{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BU8rAAAAYAAJ|title=1st ed. as google book|website=Google Books}} by Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa. It was a comprehensive reference book on the game, and one of the most important references on opening theory for many decades.{{cite book|quote="Bilguer's Handbuch was the dominant reference for some time until it was superseded by a number of international treatises, which, in the English-speaking world, included Modern Chess Openings and Practical Chess Openings."|author=I.A. Horowitz|title=Chess Openings: Theory and Practice|publisher=Simon and Schuster|date=1964|p=VII}}{{cite book|quote=Four years after the first edition of the Handbuch was published, Howard Staunton in the June 1847 preface to the first edition of his treatise The Chess-Player's Handbook, called the Handbuch "a production-whether considered in reference to its research, its suggestiveness, or the methodical completeness of its arrangement-which stands unrivalled and alone.|author=Howard Staunton|title=The Chess-Player's Handbook (2nd ed. 1848)|publisher=George Bell & Sons|p=V}} The Handbuch had been the project of Paul Rudolf von Bilguer, who was with von der Lasa a member of the Berlin Chess Club and the influential group of chess masters later called the Berlin Pleiades. Bilguer died in 1840, with the work still in the early stages. Von der Lasa completed the project and saw it published, with his friend von Bilguer alone named as author. It contained comprehensive analyses of all opening variations then known, plus a section on the history and literature of chess.{{cite book|publisher=Ishi Press|date=June 5, 2008|title=Handbuch des Schachspiels von P. R. von Bilguer: Manual of the Game of Chess by Paul Rudolf von Bilguer, 1880 Edition (blurb)}}