[WILLIS, Robert (1800-75)]. An
Attempt to Analyse the Automaton Chess Player of Mr. de Kempelen. With an Easy
Method of Imitating the Movements of that Celebrated Figure. Illustrated by
Original Drawings. To which is Added, a Copious Collection of the Knight’s
Moves over the Chess Board. London: Printed for J. Booth, 1821. Half title, lithographed frontispiece by Hullmandel after the author and 9
plates (some light staining mainly to plates) [bound with:] An Historical
Memoir, relating to the Battle of Maida, fought in Calabria, 4th
July, 1806 (London, 1819) [And:] Elijah’s Mantle; being Verses
Occasioned by the Death of that Illustrious Statesman the Right Honourable
William Pitt … The Fifth edition (London, 1807) [And:] The Edinburgh
Review, December 1826. No. LXXXIX (Edinburgh, 1826, including a plate of
hieroglyphics). Together 4 works bound in one volume, 8vo (203 x 130mm). Contemporary half calf and marbled boards, spine with red
morocco lettering-piece (rubbed and scuffed). Provenance: John J. Jones
(old signature at head of title); later annotation to frontispiece; some early
annotation to front endpapers; G. L. T. Engle (modern signature on front
pastedown); from the Library of the late Sir George Engle. FIRST EDITION of the first-named work. Wolfgang von Kempelen
(1734-1804) first displayed his celebrated “Automaton Chess Player” (or “The
Mechanical Turk”) in 1770. It convinced many who saw it that, through its
mechanism alone, it was able to hold its own against human opponents, including,
reputedly, Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. In 1821, however, Robert
Willis, a Cambridge professor and mechanical engineer, definitively exposed it
in the present work as a hoax and revealed what some had already suspected:
that the mechanism cunningly concealed a hidden human operator.
