The Knight of New Orleans: The Pride and the Sorrow of Paul Morphy

The Knight of New Orleans: The Pride and the Sorrow of Paul Morphy

1837. Paul Morphy was born into a wealthy Creole family in the French Quarter of New Orleans and became infamous for his fast and positional chess game. At twenty-one he was knighted world champion after defeating the great European masters-the English and Germans-in New York at the First American Chess Congress. In a short-lived blaze of glory, he defeated opponents in an atmosphere that encouraged gambling, drinking and often led to duels for honor. Soon no one dared play the boy from New Orleans-he even offered Pawn and Move to the world! As a young gentleman, Paul embarked on a Grand Tour of Paris and London with his manager-servant, Fred Edge. Part proud spectacle and part reluctant circus act, Paul performed feats of memory and blindfold chess, making records that stand today. He even played Emperor Napoleon III (at croquet and chess) and was praised by Queen Victoria. He returned to New Orleans lionized by high society, but misunderstood.... Morphy was in love with the lights down on Basin Street. Returning home, he developed an obsession for 'crib-girl' Clara Young, a professional working girl from an area off Basin Street known as 'The Swamp.' Clara needed money and excitement. Living in a dangerous world of brothels and barrelhouses, is she just playing with Paul for her ticket out? Who is the social misfit, the chess boy or the trick girl? Who is playing whom? Based on a true story, The Knight of New Orleans shows you all the honest and brutal moves in a gamble of love and survival. Let the best player win! Paul Morphy is today remembered as the pride and sorrow of chess. After conquering the chess world so young, he became a recluse, a failed lawyer and sanitarium patient, a dark twist on the American Dream. Paul was a strict amateur playing for honor, Clara a professional working for survival. Was Clara's world too different from Paul's, his background too bourgeois, hers too dangerous? Or will love triumph even when the pieces are checkmate? The Mississippi and the Vieux Carré are calling.... Let the games begin! "Paul Morphy's tragic story echoes Dostoevsky's The Idiot and Winston Groom's Forrest Gump --it is more than an overlooked chess story, it is a quintessential American tale, here told by Fullerty with Morphy's own combination of skill, insight, innovation, and passion." --J. C. Hallman, author of The Chess Artist "Matt Fullerty has made an important contribution to the genre of 'historical chess fiction.' A must for anyone with a passion for history or chess." --Tom Robertson, author of Napoleon Vs The Turk From the facts of Morphy's life, novelist Matt Fullerty has imagined a rich and speculative tale. The Knight of New Orleans enters the psyche of a sensitive young artist developing his gift amidst judges and gin runners, generals and call girls. --Macon Shibut, Three-Time Virginia State Chess Champion (1993, 1999, 2002) "Matt Fullerty spins a vivid and atmospheric tale around a key figure in chess history." --Tom Standage, author of The Turk --Winner of the Bookhabit (now Smashwords) Unpublished Novel Award 2008 ($5000) --Second Round, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2010 --Novel Almost Finalist, William Faulkner-Wisdom Competition (Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society) Matt Fullerty writes novels about chess, crime and conmen, namely a chess prodigy, a murderess and an art forger. Author of novels The Knight of New Orleans , The Murderess and the Hangman and American Con Artist . He also teaches in the Police Science B.A. at George Washington University in Washington, DC. For the real life crime behind The Murderess and the Hangman , see Matt's interview as a 'talking head' on the TV show Deadly Women (video at mattfullerty.com). --Winner of the Bookhabit (now Smashwords) Novel Award 2008 --Second Round, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2010 --Novel Almost Finalist, William Faulkner-Wisdom Competition (Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society) By the author of The Murderess and the Hangman and American Con Artist . mattfullerty.com "What made Matt Fullerty's writing stand out, from the very first sentence, was an unusually strong and individual way with words. Taking us into the vanished world of old America and Europe he uses a highly textured language to give an almost physical experience of being in that place and time. Drawing subtle lines between a society top-heavy with leisure and the profligate genius it produced in Morphy, he holds back the historical and personal reckoning while letting it gather and brood like the storm that finally washes away New Orleans. In my view this makes The Knight of New Orleans a stand-out all rounder in the craft of literary fiction." --Geoff Cush, author of God Help the Queen and Son of France "From the facts of Morphy's life, novelist Matt Fullerty has imagined a rich and speculative tale. The Knight of New Orleans enters the psyche of a sensitive young artist developing his gift amidst judges and gin