An Attempt to Analyse the Automaton Chess Player of Mr. De Kempelen [.] to which is added, a copious collection of the Knight's Moves over the Chess Board.

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Inscribed in pencil to a prior owner "with the author's compliments." Octavo. Half-title; 10 plates, including frontispiece. Bound in original plain brown boards. The binding well worn and chipped along the spine; light scattered foxing. The English academic Robert Willis was the first Cambridge professor to win widespread recognition as a mechanical engineer and his work on the mechanics of human speech. In this work he analyzed the famous automaton chess player of Wolfgang von Kempelen. The "Mechanical Turk" or "Automaton Chess Player" was a fake chess-playing machine unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa. In fact the Turk was a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. N° de ref. del artículo M24-C1-S3-A

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