Kings and Queens at Home: A Short History of the Chess Column in Nineteenth-Century English Periodicals

Columns catering to chess in English periodicals grew from a feature seen in a few titles at mid-century into one that was almost required reading in a weekly paper by the 1880s. Widely read papers such as the Illustrated London News fuelled an appetite for the game that was growing with the "rational recreation" movement. Other columns appeared in periodicals targeting young people, women, or local readerships. The columns themselves were an important driver of growth for chess, showing examples of good play, offering advice of various kinds, and running competitions, as well as providing puzzles for readers to solve.