Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

It's great to see some of these old resources preserved! Great work on tracking it down and digitizing it, and thanks to Joseph for providing the text!

But, are we allowed to post this here? Do we have the appropriate permissions?

Well, I admit, I don't know for sure.

From what I had been able to gather, Mr. Brown is no longer active on this site, and the email and physical addresses I have to him are no longer working; the email is deactivated, and a letter I sent to buy a physical copy of the book was returned stating it was "not deliverable to address - unable to forward." I have also not been able to find any info on or about 'Kronschild Publishing' to be able contact them.

I don't know how to contact him, or who could be contacted on his behalf. I would absolutely be willing to discuss with him (or a proxy) about whether he, himself, is okay with this.

So, yeah. I have no clue how to find and get hold of him. Anyone how does know, I would love to hear from.

But, are we allowed to post this here? Do we have the appropriate permissions?

I have emailed John William Brown at the email address we have on record for him and at the address listed in the book. Let's see if I get a response.

The email I sent was returned. The address we have on record said "No account by that name here," and the other one said "Connection refused."

Additionally, I cannot find any mention of Kronschild Publishing that is not associated with this book. As far as I can tell, this is the only book ever published by Kronschild Publishing. It was located in Lewisville, AR, which is also where JWB is said to have lived. The book has no ISBN, and all indications are that it was self-published.

Furthermore, it looks like John William Brown was old and has died. In his Preface, he mentions a trip to the Computer Science Department of Rutgers University in 1975. He was presumably an adult at the time, which would make him 64 or older. I don't recognize any name in his Acknowledgements except Hans Bodlaender. A few that I looked up gave me obituaries of old people. He mentions one in more detail, an old friend named Lewis Chessner who was a minister with a degree in physics. I found the obituary of a Rev. Lewis Chessner from Arkansas, and it did mention that he had a degree in physics. This old friend of Brown's was born in 1933. The only John William Brown I can find who lived in Lewisville is listed as 77. This person was related to Edith Brown, which is the name of "the foremost contributor" mentioned in the Acknowledgements. Finally, when I did a search for "Edith Brown Lewisville", the top result was an obituary for Johnny William Brown. Edith was his mother, and he was born in 1944. I expect this is him, and he is no longer with us.

Nice detective work!

Indeed, it seems we are a year too late with this. But this means the copyrights to the book were inherited by his descendents. The obituary does contain a link to contact those.

Thanks, Fergus! I had been looking for info on Mr. Brown and Kronschild Pub. myself, and was finding very little on my end, as well. I was almost going to use a background check service to confirm a couple candidates I'd found, but it looks like you saved me the trouble ;-P.

When I get a good opportunity, I see if I can get contact with any of his descendants in the obituary.

I'll keep you all posted.

I decided to publish this despite copyright issues remaining unsettled. As far as I know, John William Brown is deceased, and no one is otherwise publishing Meta-Chess. So, I assume it is abandoned by the author's heirs, and that the author would have wanted people to read it even if no one is making a profit selling copies. However, I will hold off on hosting the PDF on this site, though I have downloaded a copy in case the link stops working, or the heirs choose to give us permission to host it.

I had not found this page before. It causes some emotion to me because I had been in contact with JWB and I didn't know that he is no more with us. It was in 1998, Hans was the webmaster of the CVP, and I was struggling to find a publisher for my manuscript which became my 1st book two years after, Guide des échecs exotiques et insolites. I had got a copy of Meta-Chess, second edition, and I had found few details to be corrected. John sent me an e-mail on 8 May 1998 (I don't why but I printed it and I still have the copy in that book) to answer this, where he was saying "Somehow I knew that I would benefit by having a Franch (his typo) customer. The French are thought, by Americans, to have a unique perspective on things."

Time is passing so fast.

I think that it is right to post his book here. I'm sure he wanted to be read by interested people as much as possible.