Woody Allen (born in 1935) wrote a comical short story called ‘The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers,’ which appeared in the New Yorker magazine in the January 26,1966, issue. It was a parody on correspondence chess in which both players are checkmated. The two players decide to play Scrabble for the rematch.

Poul Anderson (1926-2001) wrote a science fiction article on chess called ‘The Immortal Game,’ which appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction in February, 1954. The computerized chess pieces don’t know they’re merely acting out old moves from the famous Anderssen-Kieseritsky game played in 1851, and develop various strange delusions involving free will, loyalty, melodrama, and prose.

Fernando Arrabal (born in 1932) is a Spanish playwright and novelist. In 1983, he wrote The Tower Struck by Lightning, centered around the final game of the world chess championship between Elias Tarsis and Marc Amary. Arrabal is a master chess player himself.

Isaac Asimov(1920-1992), best known for his works on science fiction, mentioned chess in one of his first science fiction stories called Nightfall, written in 1941. His first published novel, Pebble in the Sky, published in 1950, mentions chess. The story mentions that chess has not changed in thousands of years except for the names of the pieces. Schwartz and Grew play a 50 game chess match. Grew mentioned other variations of chess, such as 3-D chess and chess played with dice. In 1981, Asimov wrote a science fiction short story called The Perfect Fit. He referred to a 3-dimensional chess game which was a game with 8 chessboards stacked upon each other, making the playing area cubic rather than square.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), the1969 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, wrote a one-act play called Endgame (Fin de partie) in 1957. It used chess as a controlling metaphor. In his novel, Murphy, written in 1935, a male nurse plays chess in a mental hospital with one of his patients, Mr. Endon. Beckett himself was an avid chess player who often played chess with Marcel Duchamp.

Ronan Bennett (born in 1956), an Irish novelist, wrote Zugzwang, a chess novel, written in 2007. It was written in weekly installments for the British Sunday newspaper The Observer. It centers around the 1914 St. Petersburg Chess International Tournament, with the city on the verge of revolution. The book opens with the murder of a newspaper editor names Gulko.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913) wrote a short story surrounding chess called Moxon’s Master, written in 1893 and published in 1909. The chess-playing automaton murders its creator, Moxon, after losing a chess game to the human. It is one of the first descriptions of a robot in English literature.

Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1832-1910) won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was fond of social games and was an avid chess player. He mentioned chess in some of his books such as Magnhild , The Fisher-Maiden, In God’s Way, and Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg.

John Brunner (1934-1995) was a British author of science fiction novels. He wrote The Squares of the City in 1965. The theme is structured after the famous match between Steinitz and Chigorin in 1892. The pieces are represented by characters in the novel.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), creator of Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, wrote The Chessmen of Mars in 1922. A game of living Martian chess (Jetan) is played using people and a life-size board. As each piece is taken, there is a duel to the death. Burroughs includes references to his own chess games that he played with his assistant, John Shea, while writing the novel in 1921.

Italo Calvino (1923-1985) was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. In 1972 he wrote Invisible Cities, which has many references to chess with keen chess players as characters.

Elias Canetti (1905-1994), 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, wrote the novel Auto-da-Fe in 1931 and published in 1935. It was Canetti’s first publication. The Jewish character Fischerle (Siegbert Fischer) thinks he is a world class chess player, obsessed with chess, who fantasizes about being world chess champion with a sign on his door signed ‘Fischer: World Champion.’ He wants to prove that he is better than the current world champion, but needs a lot of money to play the world champion in a match in America. He dreams of winning and chess fans queuing up to meet him and get his autograph.

John Caris (born in 1933) wrote the Reality Inspector in 1982 with a chess theme. Computer hacking occurs at the Federal Reserve Bank while a world championship chess match is the backdrop. The book contains 24 chess diagrams and 17 games of chess.

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), whose real name was Charles Dodgson, wrote Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There in 1871. Most of the main characters are reprented by chess pieces. Alice is represented as a pawn. There are several chess references and the Red Queen becomes human-sized. Alice sees chessmen that have come to life and moving on a big chess board. The Red Queen tells Alice that the entire countryside is laid out in squares like a gigantic chess board. The Red Queen offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank in a chess match. Alice is put on the second rank, like a pawn, and begins her journey across the chess board. She makes it to the eighth rank and is automatically crowned a queen in the company of the Red and White Queens.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) mentioned chess in his short story ‘Quarantine,’ first published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Spring 1977. Clarke wrote the story as a challenge to write a story so short that if could fit on the back of a postcard. If six operators were ever re-discovered, all rational computing will end. The Curiosity Generator revealed the 6 operators before the Censor Gate stopped it. Here they are: King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn.

Alexander Cockburn (1841-2012) wrote Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death in 1974. It is a psychological study of the game of chess.

Bryce Courtenay (1933-2012), the Australian novelist, wrote The Power of One in 1989, with references to chess. The doctor in the book is a chess player. His last novel, Sylvia, published in 2012, mentions chess. Sylvia ends up as a nun who plays chess like a master and teaches chess to others.

Edward Plunkett or Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) wrote The Three Sailors’ Gambit, which was published in The Smart Set in 1916. Three sailors enter an Irish tavern and challenge any patron to a game of chess. They only play all three as one and never lose. Lord Dunsany was an avid chess player who played Capablanca twice in simultaneous exhibitions, drawing with him once. He wrote several chess poems for chess magazines.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, wrote the Waste Land in 1922. One of the chapters (chapter 2) is called “A Game of Chess.” The section takes it title from a play by Thomas Middleton, an early 17th century playwright.

Robert Lionel Fanthorpe (born in 1935) wrote Forbidden Planet in 1961 under the pseudonym John e. Muller. The novel describes an interstellar chess game played by superhuman aliens that use humans as pawns.

William Faulkner (1897-1962), 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, wrote a book called Knight’s Gambit, with six mystery stories, written in 1949. The metaphor is that when a knight simultaneously attacks the opposing queen and rook, to save the queen, you must let the rook go. The main character must make difficult and painful decisions, often between the lesser of two evils, saving the queen but losing the rook.

Ian Fleming (1908-1964) mentions chess in Moonraker, published in 1955 and his 3rd James Bond novel. He also has a chess scene in From Russia with Love, written in 1957, his 5th James Bond novel. In From Russia, With Love he wrote, “What did these people amount to? Bond remembered cold, dedicated, chess-playing Russians; brilliant, neurotic Germans; silent, deadly, anonymous men from Central Europe.” In another chapter, he wrote, “These Russians are great chess players. When they wish to execute a plot, they execute it brilliantly. The game is planned minutely, the gambits of the enemy are provided for. They are foreseen and countered…I have a feeling that you and I and this girl are pawns on a very big board – that we are being allowed our moves because they do not interfere with the Russian game.” In the novel, Ian Fleming opens chapter 7 by writing, “The two faces of the double clock in the shiny, domed case looked out across the chess-board like the eyes of some huge sea monster that had peered over the edge of the table to watch the game. The two faces of the chess clock showed different times.” One of the villains in the book, Tov Kronsteen, is a chess grandmaster and spy.

Anatole France (1844-1924) won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He mentioned chess in a few of his works such as At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque, On Life and Letters, and The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933) won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature. Chess is mentioned in several of his books, such as The Island Pharisees, The Country House, Five Tales, and The First and Last.

Karl Gjellerup (1857-1919) shared the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a Danish poet and novelist. He mentioned that chess was an accomplishment of his hero in his book The Pilgrim Kamanita.

Anthony Glyn (1922-1998) wrote The Dragon Variation in 1969, which has a chess theme. The novel centers around the world of international competitive chess.

William Golding (1911-1993), 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, wrote Lord of the Flies in 1954. One of the quotes from the novel is “The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.” One of Golding’s hobbies was chess.

Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946) won the 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a German dramatist and novelist. Chess is mentioned in some of his works such as Atlantis, Lonely Lives, Before Sunset (a play with a solitary actor seated a t a chess board playing over a game of chess), and Colleague Crampton.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), an American science fiction writer, wrote The Rolling Stones in 1952. It was about a kid who played chess and could see what the other person was thinking. Heinlein was an avid chess player. He also wrote Starman Jones in 1953. A three-dimensional chess game was played aboard a starship.

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, wrote Steppenwolf in 1929. One of the chapters is called “The Chess Player.” The novel mentions a gifted chess player.

Paul Heyse (1830-1914) won the 1910 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a distinguished writer and translator. He mentioned chess in his book The Romance of the Canoness, about a lady’s victory at chess over a baron. Chess is mentioned several times in his book, Barbaroosa and Other Tales.

Ilya Ilf (1897-1937) and Evgeny Petrov (1903-1942), also known as Ilf and Petrov, wrote The Twelve Chairs in 1928. The novel partially takes place at a chess club. One of the characters promises a town that it could become the chess center of the world.

Frances Parkinson Keyes (1885-1970) wrote the historical novel The Chess Players in 1960, centered around Paul Morphy.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature. He mentioned chess in some of his works, such as Captain Courageous, Actions and Reactions, A Diversity of Creatures, and The Light That Failed. Chess is also mentioned in his short story, The Embroideress of Treviso.

Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940) won the 1909 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first female writer to do so. She mentioned chess in some of her works such as Liliecrona’s Home, Charlotte Lowenskold, and Anna Svard.

Waldemar Lysiak (born in 1944) is a Polish writer and journalist. In 1989, he wrote Szachista (Polish: The Chess Player), centered around a game of chess between Napoleon and The Turk automaton.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a German novelist and short story writer. Chess was mentioned in some of his books such as, The Magic Mountain and Buddenbrooks, as well as some of his short stories.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (born in 1927), 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, mentions chess in several of his works. In Love in the Time of Cholera, written in 1989, the doctor, Dr. Urbino, and his friend, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, plays chess until his friend commits suicide with a cyanide capsule.

George R.R. Martin (born in 1948) is an American screenwriter and science fiction author. In 1987, he wrote Unsound Variations, which was included in Portraits of His Children. The novella centers around a chess team event. Martin is best known for A Song of Ice and Fire, which HBO adapted for their dramatic series Game of Thrones. From the early 1970s to 1976, Martin made a living by running chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association.

Paolo Maurensig (born in 1943), an Italian novelist, wrote The Luneburg Variation in 1993, which has a chess theme. A man is found shot in his garden, which has a chessboard-shaped clearing paved with squares of white and black marble. The murdered man was obsessed with chess.

Herman Melville (1819-1891) mentions chess in a few of his writing. Chess is mentioned in Omoo (1847), Redburn (1849), White Jacket (1850), Pierre (1852), and Billy Budd (wriiten in 1888 and published in 1924). In Moby Dick, he refers to the harpooner Daggoo as looking like a chessman.

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) wrote The Defense (Zashchita Luzhina or Luzhin’s Defense) in 1930, slightly based on the life and suicide of Curt von Bardeleben. The main character, Aleksandr Luzhin, suffers from mental problems because of his obsession with chess. In 1955, Nabokov wrote Lolita where the main character Humbert plays chess. He also published a book containing both poems and chess problems.

Katherine Neville (born in 1945) wrote The Eight in 1988 with a chess theme. It is about a computer expert, Catherine Velis, searching for a gold and silver chess set that belonged to Charlemagne. The set has been buried for a thousand years, dug up, and scattered around the world. There are 64 characters, all seeking the pieces in a giant chess game that forms the plot.

Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was an American playwright. Chess is mentioned in some of his plays. He compared card players to mechanical chess players in Long Day’s Journey into Night.

George Orwell (1903-1950) has several references of chess and a Chess Committee in 1984. Winston studied a chess problem, and all chess problems since the beginning of the world always had White winning and mating. Black never won.

Arturo Perez-Reverte (born in 1951) wrote the crime novel The Flanders Panel in 2004, with a chess theme. One of the quotes in the novel is “Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It’s about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.”

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was an Italian dramatist and novelist. Chess is mentioned in some of his works, such as Tales of Suicide and Berecche and the War.

Terry Pratchett (born in 1948) is an English author of fantasy novels. In 1983, he wrote The Color of Magic, his first of 39 Discworld novels that feature stealth chess. It is similar to normal chess, with the exception of an extra chess piece (an assassin piece) and two more ranks on the chess board. The game is described in The Discworld Companion, written in 1994.

Ellen Raskin (1928-1984), was an American writer. In 1978, she wrote The Westing Game. Several of the characters (Westing, Theo, Turtle, and the Judge) play chess. Chess is the most important game in the novel.

Romain Rolland (1866-1944). He won the 1915 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a French dramatist and novelist. In his book …Liluli, he wrote that diplomacy is a game of chess.

Joanne K. Rowling (born in 1965) mentions wizard chess in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone, written in 2004. The characters play Wizard’s Chess. Chess is mentioned in several of the Harry Potter series (1997-2007).

Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007), and American science fiction and fantasy author, wrote Pawn to Infinity. It is an anthology of chess stories. Saberhagen was an avid chess player.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) mentions chess in The Tempest. Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered playing chess. He may have used allusions to the game in other writings. In Winter’s Tale, he talks of an “unkind mate.” In The Taming of the Shrew, he writes “I pray you sir, is it your will, To make a stale of me amongst these mates?” In Henry VI, he mentions the “warlike mate.” In King Lear, he speaks of “one self-mate.”

Darren Shan (born inn 1972) is an Irish author. In 2005, he wrote Lord Loss. The main character is Grubbs Grady, a child whose family are all chess players. Lord Loss in a human-like demon who plays chess.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) won the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature. Although he played chess, he wrote that “Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.” In his book, Back to Methuselah, he mentioned that the newspapers were occupied by the exploits of Sammy Reshevsky at age 8 defeating 20 adult players simultaneously. He also mentioned chess in his book, The Irrational Knot.

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, wrote about chess in several of his works such as The Knights of the Cross, Hania, Without Dogma, and With Fire and Sword.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991), 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature, had a chess prodigy character in his book Shadows of the Hudson, published in 1997. Singer is quoted as saying, “We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move, we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves, we try to prevent it. We know we can’t win, but we’re driven to give him a good fight.”

Amy Tan (born in 1952), wrote The Joy Luck Club in 1989. Several of the female characters are strong chess players. Waverly becomes a national chess champion. Tan’s first short story was “Endgame.” It describes a young chess champion who has a bad relationship with her overprotective Chinese mother.

Walter Tevis (1928-1984), an American novelist and short story writer, wrote The Queen’s Gambit in 1984. Beth Harmon, an orphan and chess genius, becomes U.S. chess champion and goes on to face the Russians. Three of his six novels were adapted into major films: The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) won the 1928 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was a Norwegian novelist. She mentioned chess in some of her works such as The Son Avenger, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) has a story with a chess theme in the short story “All the King’s Horses,” written in 1951 and published in Collier’s magazine. A plane crashes and a Communist guerilla chief has the Army colonel forced to play a game of living chess with the 16 prisoners, including his wife and two sons. Any American pieces that are captured in the game are immediately execute. If the colonel wins, he and his surviving pieces will be freed.

Charles Yaffe wrote Alekhine’s Anguish: A Novel of the Chess World in 1999. It is a fictionalized account of the life and career of Alexander Alekhine.

William Yeats (1865-1939) won the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was an Irish poet. Yeats often associated chess with death or the life after death. Chess is mentioned in some of his works such as John Sherman, and Dhoya, and Deirde (about a chess board and a King and Queen who played upon it). His son was Honorary Secretary the chess club at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) wrote The Royal Game in 1941. One of the passengers on a ship traveling from New York to Buenos Aires is the world chess champion. The other chess player is Dr. B, who beats the world champion. In the return match, the champion plays as slowly as possible, driving Dr. B. mad. It was Zweig’s last novel, which he completed in Brazlian exile. He sent the manuscript to his American publisher in February, 1942. A few days later, he committed suicide.

List of authors and chess-related literature

Allen, Woody – Getting Even (Random House, 1971); The Gossage-Varabedian Papers
Altman, Linda – Checkmate Julie
Anderson, Poul (1926-2001) – The Immortal Game (F&SF,1954)
Andreyev, Leonid (1871-1919) – The Seven That Were Hanged (1908)
Arrabal, Fernando – The Tower Struck by Lightning (Prix Nadal 1983)
Asimov, Isaac (1920-1992) – Pebble in the Sky (Doubleday, 1950)
Bailey, Len – Clabbernappers
Bard, Benedict – The Black Queen
Barns, Charles Edward – Digby, Chess Professor (1889)
Becket, Samuel (1906-1989) – Murphy (1938) and Endgame (1957)
Bellairs, John – Chessmen of Doom (Johnny Dixon)
Bennett, Ronan, Zugzwang (2006)
Berman, Ruth – A Board in the Other Direction (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1974)
Bierce, Ambrose (1842-1914) – Moxon’s Master (1893)
Birch, David – The King’s Chessboard
Bland, Mark – The Four Chessmen (Morris, 2001)
Bochak, John – The Gamemaster (1995)
Bontly, Thomas – Celestial Chess (Ballantine Books, 1980)
Borges, Jorge Luis – The Gardens of Forking Paths (1941)
Borges, Jorge Luis – The Game of Chess (Dreamtigers, 1974)
Boucher, Rita – Miss Gabriel’s Gambit (Avon, 1993)
Braine, Sheila – The Turkish Automation (1896)
Brown, Dan – Da Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003)
Brunner, John – The Squares of the City (Ballentine, 1965)
Burroughs, Edgar Rice (1875-1950) – The Chessmen of Mars (Argosy, 1922)
Burton, Richard – Arabian Knights (1885)
Calvino, Italo – Invisible Cities (1972)
Canetti, Elias (1905-1994) – Auto-da-Fe (1935)
Caris, John – Reality Inspector (Westgate House, 1982)
Carrol, Lewis (1832-1898) – Through The Looking Glass (1872)
Carter, Stephen – The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002)
Celieres, Paul – The Stratling Exploits of Dr. J.B. Quies (1887)
Chabon, Michael – The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (HarperCollins 2007)
Chandler, Raymond – The Big Sleep (1939)
Chesbro, George – King’s Gambit (New English Library 1976)
Christie, Agatha – The Big Four (Collins, 1927)
Clarke, Arthur C. – Quarantine (Asimov’s SFM Spring 1977)
Cockburn, Alexander – Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death (Simon & Shuster, 1974)
Cochran, Molly and Murphy, Warren – Grandmaster (1984)
Codrescu, Andrei – The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess (2009)
Coggins, Mark – The Immortal Game (1999)
Colonna, Francesco – Strife of Love in a Dream (1890)
Contoski, Victor – Von Goom’s Gambit (Chess Review, 1966)
Couperus, Louis – Het zwevende schaakbord (1922)
Courtenay, Bryce – The Power of One (Random House, 1989)
Delman, David – The Last Gambit (St. Martins 1991)
Devroe, Hans – Het schaakspel van Leuvren
Duerrenmatt, Friedrich – Der Schachspieler
Dumas pere, Alexander – Twenty Years After (1845)
Dunnett, Dorothy – Pawn in Frankincense (1969)
Dunsany, Lord – “Jorken’s Problem” in The Ghosts of the Heavside Layer and Other Fantasms and Three Sailor’s Gambit (1916)
Eliot, T.S. – Waste Land (1922)
Ellison, James – Master Prim (1968)
Farber, Erica – Kiss of the Mermaid (Random House, 1996)
Faulkner, William – Knight’s Gambit (1949)
Fleming, Ian – Moonraker (Jonathan Cape, 1955)
Fleming, Ian – From Russia With Love (1957)
Frazier, Robert – Rendezvous 2062 (Fantasy Book, 1982)
Freymann-Weyr, Garret – The King’s Are Already Here
Garrow, Simon – The Amazing Adventure of Dan, the Pawn
Gavin, Thomas – King Kill (Vintage/Ebury, 1978)
Gerrold, David – Chess With A Dragon (1987)
Gilbert, Daniel – Kokomu
Glavinic, Thomas – Carl Haffner’s Love of the Draw (2000)
Glyn, Anthony – The Dragon Variation (Hutchinson, 1969)
Golding, William – Lord of the Flies (1954)
Gormley, Beatrice – The Magic Mean Machine
Hale, Lucretia – The Queen of the Red Chessmen
Hall, Adam – Hugo Bishop
Hall, Katy – My Secret Life
Hansen, Brooks – The Chess Garden (Riverhead Trade, 1996)
Harness, Charles – The Chessplayers
Harper, Piers – Checkmate at Chess City
Hehl, Eileen – Playing Games
Heinlein, Robert – The Rolling Stone (1952
Hesse, Hermann – Steppenwolf (1929)
Hochberg, Burt – 64-Square Looking Glass (Times Books, 1993)
Huigen, Rene – De meter van Napoleon (1988)
Ipcar, Dahlov – The Warlock of Night
Jacobs, Linda – Checkmate Julie (1974)
Jackson, Anita – A Deadly Game (Lake Pub Co, 1979)
Keckhut, John – The Dublin Pawn (Norton, 1977)
Keyes, Frances Parkinson – The Chess Players (1960)
Knight, Norman and Guy, Will – King, Queen, and Knight (Batsford, 1975)
Kraus, Robert – Mort the Sport (Scholastic, 2000)
Krol, Gerrit – Een schaaknovelle (2002)
Kuttner, Henry (Lewis Padgett) – The Chess Civilization
Leiber, Fritz – A Pail of Air (Aeonian, 1979)
Leiber, Fritz – Midnight by the Morphy Watch (Worlds of If, Aug 1974)
Leiber, Fritz – ChangeWar Story
Leiber, Fritz – The 64-Square Madhouse (If, May 1962)
Leithauser, Brad – Hence (Penguin, 1989)
Levy, Elizabeth – The Computer That Said Steal Me (Winds Press, 1983)
Levy, Elizabeth – Vampire State Building
Lohr, Robert – The Chess Machine (2007)
London, Jack – The Jacket (Star-Rover) (Mills & Boon, 1915)
Lovejoy, David – Moral Victories (Echo Publications, 2008)
Mahony, Mary – Stand Tall, Harry
Malzberg, Barry – Tactics of Conquest (Penguin Putman, 1974)
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia – Love in the Time of Cholera (1989)
Martin, George – Unsound Variations (Amazing, Jan 1982)
Maurensig, Paolo – The Luneburg Variation (Farrar 1997)
Meras, Icchokas – De glimlach van Busia (1963)
Middleton, Thomas – A Game at Chess
Milky, D. – Treasure Chess
Muldoon, Kathleen – Checkmate
Muller, John (Lionel Fanthorpe) – Forbidden Planet (1961)
Murphy, Warren & Cohran, Molly – Grandmaster
Murphy, Warren & Cohran, Molly – Endgame
Nabokov, Vladimir – The Defense (Zashchita Luzhina) (1930)
Nabokov, Vladimir – Lolita (1955) (Humbert plays chess with Polish doctor and neighbor)
Neville, Katherine – The Eight (Ballentine, 1988)
Neville, Katherine – The Fire (2008)
Orwell, George – 1984 (1949)
Padgett, Lewis – Chessboard Planet
Padgett, Lewis – The Chess Civilization
Padilla, Ignacio – Shadow Without a Name (Farrar, 2000)
Perez-Reverte, Arturo – The Flanders Panel (Bantam, 1996)
Petrov – The Twelve Chairs (1928)
Peyton, Richard – Sinister Gambits (Souvenir Press, 1991)
Poe, Edgar Allen – Maezel’s Chess-Player
Pratchett, Terry – Discworld (1983)
Propper, Ryan – The Ultimate Chess Challenge (1999)
Pylodet, L and Leypoldt, Augusta – Checkmated and other Stories by Leading Masters (1886)
Raskin, Ellen – The Westing Game
Richardson, Maurice – “A Quiet Game of Chess” in The Exploits of Engelbrecht (1948)
Robinson, Nancy K. – Countess Veronica (1994)
Roggeveen, Leonard – Werldkampioen 2003
Rowling, J.K. – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2004)
Rushdie, Salman – East, West (‘The Courter’)
Russ, Joanna – A Game of Vlet (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Feb 1974)
Saberhagen, Fred – Pawn to Infinity (Ace, 1982)
Saberhagen, Fred – To Move and Win
Sawaski, James – The Chess Team (iUniverse, 2005)
Shakespeare, William – The Tempest
Shepherd, William – The Chessmen
Shura, Mary Francis – The Josie Gambit (Putnam 1989)
Sienkiewicz, Henryk – The Knights of the Corss and With Fire and Sword
Simmons, Dan – Carrion Comfort (Dark Harvest, 1989)
Singer, Isaac – Shadows of the Hudson (1997)
Smith, Kent – Incident at the Sicilian Dragon (1981)
Smullyan, Raymond – Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes (Random House, 1994)
Snodgrass, Melinda – Queen’s Gambit Declined (1989)
Soltis, Andy – Los Voraces, 2019 (McFarland, 2003)
Stewart, Alfred – Reflections on the Looking-Glass
Stout, Rex – Gambit (Viking, 1962)
Stryker, Dev – End Game (1994)
Sutcliff, Rosemary – Chess-dream in a Garden (Candlewick, 1993)
Tan, Amy – The Joy Luck Club (Ladies Home Journal 1989)
Tepper, Sheri – King’s Blood Four
Tepper, Sheri – Necomancer Nine
Tepper, Sheri – Wizard’s Eleven
Tevis, Walter – The Queen’s Gambit (Dell 1984)
Timmer, Ernst – Het waterrad van Ribe
Truzzi, Marcello – Chess in Literature (Avon 1974)
Van Dine, S.S. (Willard Wright) – The Bishop Murder Case (1928)
Vernon, Roger Lee – The Chess Civilization (short story)
Vogt, Alfred E. van – The Players of Null-A (Berkely, 1966)
Vonnegut, Kurt – All the King’s Horses (1951)
Vonnegut, Kurt – Welcome to the Monkey House (1998)
Waitzkin, Fred – Searching for Bobby Fischer (1988)
Waterman, Andrew – Poetry of Chess
Watson, Ian – Queenmagic, Kingmagic (1986)
Weitz, Michael – Even Dead Men Play Chess (Lachesis Publishing, 2009)
Whitney, Phyllis – Hunter’s Green (Doubleday, 1995)
Witzsche, Rolf – The Chess Player (2005)
Wolf, Gene – The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton (1977)
Wong, Janet – Alex and the Wednesday Chess Club
Woro, Eric – Under the Black Sun (1995)
Yaffe, Charles – Alekhine’s Anguish (McFarland, 1999)
Zelazny, Roger – Unicorn Variations (Timescape, 1983)
Zelman, Anita – The Right Moves (St Martin’s Press, 1988)
Zweig, Stefan – The Royal Game (Schachnovelle) (1941)

– Bill Wall