Baird, Mrs. W. J. The Twentieth Century Retractor, Chess Fantasies, and Letter Problems. Being a selection of three hundred problems. Enriched with Shakespearean quotations. London, Sotheran, 1907. In English. With 1 portrait plate and many two-colour diagrams. Approx. 190 unnumbered leaves. LN 2577. Betts 39 - 4. Weight 1,37 kg, size 28 x 20 cm. Original red cloth binding.

“Contains 200 retractors, 100 direct mates of the 'picture' and 'letter' type. Each problem is accompanied by quotations from Shakespeare; all are by the author, who was the inventor of the retractor genre. Solutions appear at the end. The text is printed in blue, the diagrams in blue and red." (Betts) 

Retractor (retrograde analysis) is a technique employed to determine which moves were played leading up to a given position. 

W.J. Baird (1859-1924) was a rare phenomenon in the usually male domain of composing chess problems and in her day one of the most prolific composers of chess problems in the world. She created more than 2000 problems in her lifetime.

Condition - Poor to Fair: binding is very worn with faded ornament on front cover. Half-title is a little torn in the middle part (about 5 cm). The pages are stained (most pages only a little at the bottom), but the text is clearly visible everywhere. Crack at gutter in several places. All major defects can be found in the photos.

Note: due to the condition, I am giving a very low starting price, although this book usually sells for around 400-500 €.