Wolfgang Pauly by Marian Stere

Wolfgang Pauly
Challenge of a legacy
by M.Stere

Long time ago, more than 15 years, I have recovered by pure fortune the archives of Wolfgang Pauly from his old house which had to be demolished to make room for the communist mega-building called The House of People, hosting today the Romanian Parliament.
Thus I was able to read his original copybooks with correspondence, to read letters received by Pauly from other great problemists, to look through thousands of diagrams...
The most part of the archives is gathered in this volume.
I have reproduced many letters, entirely or only fragments, often preserving the original language, considering that this way the text is more valuable for the English or German-language reader.
Some mistakes may appear when a French or German text is inserted. Sorry!
T.R. Dawson's letters are of great interest not only of problem composition point of view, but also from a human one! So I have presented as many as I was able to and the number of pages of my book - fastly growing day-by-day - has permitted.
You will see not only the gems of Pauly, but also less important problems, tries, sketches, also cooks, unidentified problems by source or date. You must understand that I intended to show you the legacy of Pauly, not a selection from his work.
The challenge is that you may find a good idea or a better position for a sketch or for a cook, you may fill the gaps of information (source, date) or find new problems.
I did not have full collections of the magazines where Pauly had published his problems, so many may still appear. And I truly hope that publishing this Pauly-book, an impulse will be given to many problemists and historians in completing Pauly's work.
So, any further contribution is welcome.
I must tell you that I have worked completely alone almost all this time in writting this book. But I feel the need to mention several names who have concrete contributions.
First of all, the name of Valeriu Petrovici (master in chess composition, national champion 1997-1998) must be mentioned as the main and practically the only co-worker.
Without a special order, I mention the following names: G.P. Jelliss, Michael McDowell - England, Ivan Bottlik - Hungary, Lothar Schmid, Hans-Peter Reich and PDB (Problem DataBase) - Germany, Olivier Ronat - France, Harold van der Heijden, Jurgen Stigter - Holland, Anton Sperdea - Romania, David Bersadski -former Romania, now in Israel.
Michael McDowell, for example, was so kind to spend several hours in the Royal Library of the Hague, looking for Pauly's problems in The Chess Amateur, and then to send the solutions!
Jurgen Stigter was a real support during the last years of my work.

The book is 90% written in Rumanian, it contains more than 1300 chess problems (2, 3, 4 and more moves, selfmate, helpmate, reflex mate, etc.). All solutions and comments to the diagrams are in international figurines so they are very easy to read. Pages 738. Hard cover.

Some opinions of important problemists who have seen the book:

Michael McDowell, England – “Mr. Manolescu showed me a copy of the Pauly book at Wageningen… The general view was very favourable… I think it is a very impressive book, and a fine addition to chess problem literature.”

Harold van der Heijden, Holland – “Mr. Manolescu showed me the book in Wageningen, and I must say that I was very, very impressed.”

Peter M. Fayers, England – “I have now received your Pauly book, and may I congratulate you on an excellent book - a masterpiece!”

Henry Tanner, Finland – “A couple of days ago I bought your great book on Pauly. A magnificent work! Thank you very much for producing such a gem! I know only one other book with over 1000 problems by one author, Rinck's 1414 studies (for example, The Golden Argosy had 672 problems by Shinkman, White's Loyd book had 714). And you had much interesting information besides the problems themselves.”

Ralf J. Binnewirtz, Germany – “This book really fills a gap in problem chess literature and is a very valuable reference work due to the articles of and about Pauly, letters, photos and correspondence between Pauly and Dawson, many of them published first, and of course the wonderful collection of problems. This is all great stuff, and the book is surely "a must" for each collector and problem chess friend.”

SCHACH magazine, Germany, October 2001, brief review at pp. 81.

ROCHADE EUROPA magazine, Germany, November 2001, review at pp. 81.

THE PROBLEMIST magazine, England, November 2001, review at pp. 232-233.

EBUR magazine, Holland, December 2001, pp. 7-8.

SCHACH-MARKT magazine, Germany, Dez./Jan. 2002, review at pp. 26-27

Euro 38,00