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Dickens's Gamers: Social Thinking in Victorian Gaming and Social Systems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2019
Extract
In 1905 Lasker's Chess Magazine published a nostalgic reflection on “Charles Dickens as a Chess Player.” Dickens's “old time friend,” Miss Tregear, recalled often playing whist and chess with the competitive novelist: “He was always annoyed when she beat him, and invariably wanted to play another game.” One night, “at midnight,” they reached a draw and Miss Tregear remembers Dickens soliloquizing, “somewhat resignedly,” that the results were just: “Man and woman represent an equation after all. … Intellectual affection is the only lasting love. Love that has a game of chess in it can checkmate any man and solve the problem of life” (12). One “peculiarity” marked Dickens as a chess player: “He always wanted Miss Tregear to play first. He followed all her play and accepted all her variations. ‘It was just so,’ she said, ‘in all his novels. He lets a character lead, and then he simply follows it. … He never created a character’” (12).
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