Chess Collection of Williard Fiske

The American businessman, Williard Fiske (1831-1904), held a wide interest in everything that had to do with Iceland. He visited Iceland in 1879 and taught Icelandic as a professor of Nordic studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. He collected all printed Icelandic material that he could find, and later he bequeathed his collection to Cornell University. That is the second largest collection of Icelandic material outside Iceland. Fiske also collected all available material and journals on chess, and he was an avid enthusiast about chess. He was fascinated with the chess interest of people in Iceland, particularly in the island of Grímsey and he decided to donate to the National Library his collection of chess material. The collection holds about 1200 books, some of which are very rare. Much of the chess collection is bound in quality bindings.